Sfrnm  tl|f  ffitbntru  nf 

tl}t  Htbrarg  of 
Prinrrton  Qlli^obgtral  ^^mttiarg 

BL  51  .B8 

Bryant,  William  McKendree, 

b.  1843. 

Life,  death  and  immortality 


LIFE   DEATH 
AND    IMMORTALITY 


WITH  KINDRED  ESSAYS 


WIIvLIAM  M.   BRYANT,  M.  A.,  LL.  D. 

INSTRUCTOR  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ETHICS    ST.    LOUIS    NORMAL 

AND  HIGH  SCHOOL 


THE  BAKER  AND  TAYLOR  CO. 

5  AND  7  East  Sixteenth  Street 

1898 


Copyright  1898 
By  WM.  M.  BRYANT 


To  The  Rev.  R.  A.  Holi^and,  S.  T.  D. 


PREFACE. 


The  essays  comprised  in  this  volume  have  de- 
veloped one  by  one  during  a  number  of  years  past. 
It  will  be  found  that  all  of  them  are  really  upon  one 
common  theme— the  religious  aspect  of  human  na- 
ture. 

For  the  time  being  negative  criticism  of  Chris- 
tianity as  based  upon  the  "Sacred  Writings,"  ap- 
pears to  have  fairly  exhausted  its  resources.  And  in 
doing  so  it  has  performed  the  very  great  service  of 
preparing  the  way  for  further  positive  interpretation 
of  the  fundamental  conceptions  which  constitute  the 
core  of  the  Christian  doctrine  as  to  man's  nature  and 
destiny.  The  studies  here  presented  are  offered  as  a 
contribution  in  the  direction  of  such  positive  interpre- 
tation. 

Four  of  the  essays,  it  should  be  added,  have  pre- 
viously l^een  published  in  full — that  on  Buddhism  and 


VI  PREFACE. 


Christianity,  in  the  Andover  Review;  the  second,  the   ' 
sixth,  and  the  last,  (as  well  as  part  of   the   first)    in 
the  Ujiitarian  Review.     The  last  essay  has  also  been 
printed  separately  as  a  booklet. 


CONTENTS. 


Pages. 
I.    Life,  Dkath  and  Immortauty 1-75 

II.    Oriental  Rewgions 76-85 

III.  Buddhism  and  Christianity 90-145 

IV.  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism 146-258 

V.    The  Naturai.  History  of  Church  Organ- 
ization   259-296 

VI.    The  Heresy  of  Non-Progressive  Ortho- 
doxy  297-317 

VII.     MiRACi^ES 318-368 

VIII.    Christian  Kthics    as    Contrasted    With 

THE  Kthics  of  Other  Rewgions. 369-405 

IX.    Eternity— A  Thread  in  the  Weaving  of 

A  Life 406-442 


ERRATA. 


Of  the    misprints  the   following    are   those    materially 
affecting  the  sense  : 

Page    35,  line  13  from  above,  omit  not. 
Page  124,  line  2  from  above,  for  unit  read  unity. 
Page  208,  last  line  (foot  note),  for  236  read  136. 
Page  225,  line  3  from  below,  for  lyrisin  read  lyricism. 
Page  278,  line  5  from  below,  for  resistance  read  existence. 
Page  337,  line  5  from  below,  for  motive  read  nature. 
Page  402,  line  5  from  above,  for  care  read  core. 


1. 

LIFE,  DEATH  AND  IMMORTAUTY/ 


[FROM  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  THE  CONSERVATION  OF  ENERGY.] 


1.      The  Origin  of  IJfe. 

When  it  was  suggested  a  number  of  years  ago  in 
one  of  the  leading  scientific  assemblies  of  the  world 
that  the  origin  of  life  on  the  earth  may  have  been  due 
to  the  chance  transmission  through  space  of  a  pri- 
mordial germ  wrapped  up  in  a  meteorite,  a  discovery 
of  real  significance  appeared  to  have  been  made.  All 
the  world  was  duly  notified.  And  apparently  all  the 
world  was  expected  to  be  duly  content  thereafter,  as 
if  nothing  further  was  to  be  said  concerning  the  pre- 
viously much  vexed  question  of  the  "Beginnings  of 
Eife." 

The  suggestion,  as  well  as  its  ready  acceptance  by 
men  of  science,  was  indeed  quite  in  keeping  with  an 
opinion  more  or  less  prevalent  and  which  came  to  be 
formulated  by  the  authors  of  "The  Unseen  Universe," 
to  the  effect  that  "it  is  not  so  much  the  right  or  priv-  I 
ilege  as  the  bounden  duty  of  the  men  of  science  to  put 


^For  a  statement  of  the  presuppositions  of  this  essay  the 
reader  is  referred  to  my  volume:  ''^The  World- Energy  and 
its  Self -Conservation.'" 


2  I^IFK,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

back  the  direct  interference  of  the  Great  First  Cause 
— the  unconditioned — as  far  as  he  possibly  can  in 
time.'" 

What  the  Great  First  Cause  could  possibly  "inter- 
fere" with  or  in,  outside  of  its  own  legitimate  domain, 
or  what  possible  efficiency  "the  man  of  science"  can 
or  could  have  to  "put  back"  such  interference  in 
time  in  any  degree,  does  not  seem  altogether  evident 
on  first  glance  to  the  non-"scientific  '  eye.  Still  less 
does  it  seem  evident  when  one  takes  into  account  the 
full  significance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Conservation 
of  Energy,  upon  w^iich  the  man  of  science,  with  ex- 
cellent reasons,  lays  so  much  stress. 

In  non-scientific  ages,  when  people  had  not  yet 
learned  to  really  think,  but  only  gave  loose  rein  to 
their  phantasy,  they  saw  nothing  contradictory  in 
the  supposition  that  any  given  portion  of  matter 
might  wholly  cease  to  exist,  or  that  the  non-existent 
might  become  solid  reality.  But  now  everyone 
knows  how  experimental  science  long  since  awakened 
men  to  critical  habits  of  thinking,  and  how  the  mind, 
once  awakened  to  this  state,  finds  it  utterly  incon- 
ceivable that  something  should  become  nothing,  or 
that  nothing  should  become  something.  Form  or 
mode  of  existence  may  here  and  there  change — nay, 
must  ceaselessly  and  everywhere  change.     But  that 


'First  Kdition,  p.  131. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   LIFE.  3 

the  total  quantity  of  Energy  should  ever  change  is 
utterly  unthinkable.  It  may  indeed  be  hnagined,  for 
imagination  is  never  troubled  by  a  contradiction.  But 
thought  utterly  and  spontaneously  repudiates  contra- 
diction. And  the  more  clearly  the  contradiction  is 
recognized  as  such,  the  more  is  it  seen  to  be  some- 
thing absolutely  and  forever  foreign  to  thought.  The 
consistent  alone  can  be  received  into  the  thinking 
consciousness  and  maintained  there. 

The  "man  of  science"  then  is  bound  to  recognize, 
and  indeed  is  constantly  insisting,  that  the  total 
quantity  of  Energy  is  changeless.  Nothing  can  be 
added  to  it  ;  nothing  can  be  taken  from  it.  And  if 
this  be  true  of  the  total  quantity  of  Energy  it  must  be 
true  of  each  one  of  its  modes.  Each  is  a  mode  of 
the  total  Energ3^  Each  is  the  total  Energy  in  one  of 
its  modes.  So  that  if  in  any  given  locality  a  given 
mode  of  Energy  increases  in  degree,  it  must  be 
through  a  corresponding  decrease  in  degree  of  the 
same  mode  elsewhere.  Doubtless  locally  the  various 
modes  of  Energy  are  interchangeable.  The  disap- 
pearance of  heat  as  heat  at  any  given  point  must  ever 
be  the  obverse  of  the  coming  into  manifestation  at  the 
same  point  of  an  exactly  equivalent  amount  of  light, 
or  of  sound,  or  of  electric  tension,  or  of  expansion  of 
a  mass  of  matter,  or  of  all  these  combined.  But  as  a 
whole  the  total  Energy  must,  in  its  very  nature  as  an 
unchanging  total,   preserve  each   of  its  modes  undi- 


4  LIFE,    DEATH   AND   IMMORTALITY. 

minished,  unchanged  in  its  total  compass  as  a  mode 
of  the  total  Energy. 

But  now  assuming  that  the  total  Energy  is  forever 
the  same,  there  is  to  be  considered  the  further  ques- 
tion :  Can  Energy  be  conceived  scientific  illy,  can  it 
really  be  thought  as  ever  in  any  other  state  than  that 
of  total  and  complete  activity  ?  And  the  only  an- 
swer which  the  really  thinking  mind  can  make  to 
this  would  seem  to  be  that  Energy  cannot  exist  other- 
wise than  as  active.  Its  activity  is  its  existence. 
Were  it  partially  inactive,  it  would  be  partially  non- 
existent. And  thus  if  it  could  ever  for  a  moment 
cease  its  activity  in  whole  or  in  part,  then  it  would  in 
that  fact  cease  to  exist  in  whole  or  in  part.  So  that 
the  total  Energy  as  changeless  cannot  be  conceived 
otherwise  than  as  changelessly  active. 

That  would  seem  to  be  the  real  meaning  of  the 
phrase:  "Total  quantity  of  Energy."  And  if  so, 
then  the  Total  Energy  must  be  one  and  the  same 
with  the  "Great  First  Cause,"  to  the  activity  of 
which  is  due  every  phase  of  Reality.  Whence  it 
seems  evident  that  the  Great  First  Cause  is  a  Power 
which  in  its  changeless  comj'jleteness  is  forever  equal 
to  itself  in  its  activity,  and  hence  also  in  the  product 
of  its  activity.  And  if  this  is  true,  then  it  could  not 
at  some  period  "as  far  back  in  time"  as  "the  man  of 
science"  can  push  it,  have  created  a  world  and  after- 
ward left  it  to  spin  on  of  its  own  accord,  without  "in- 


THE   ORIGIN   OF    LIFE-    ,  .5 

terference,"  for  an  indefinite  period  following.  Rather 
that  same  Great  First  Cause,  whose  creative  activity 
was  needful  to  give  the  world  its  existence  at  the 
"beginning,"  is  not  less  needful,  and  perpetually 
needful,  to  maintain  the  world  in  its  existence — as 
was  long  ago  recognized  and  explicitly  afhrmed  by 
Des  Cartes.  "In  truth,"  he  says,  "it  is  perfectly 
clear  and  evident  to  all  who  will  attentively  consider 
the  nature  of  duration,  that  the  conservation  of  a  sub- 
stance, in  each  moment  of  its  duration,  requires  the 
same  power  and  act  that  would  be  necessary  to  create 
it,  supposing  it  were  not  yet  in  existence  ;  so  that  it 
is  manifCvStly  a  dictate  of  the  natural  light  that  con- 
servation and  creation  differ  merely  in  respect  of  our 
mode  of  thinking."' 

Thus,  whether  we  regard  the  phenomena  of  the 
w^orld  beyond  us  or  the  phenomena  of  the  world 
within  us,  we  are  driven  to  recognize  the  fact  that 
"each  order  of  manifestations  carries  wath  it  the  irre- 
sistible implication  of  some  power  that  manifests  it- 
self. ""'  And  ultimately  these  manifestations  are  noth- 
ing else  than  modes  of  activity  of  the  Total  Energy  ; 
or,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Mr.  Spencer's,  they  are  "modes 
of  manifestation  of  the  Unknowable."'      But  we  have 

^Meditations^  p.  48,  trans.  (5th  Ed.)  Edinburg. 
'Herbert  Spencer,  First  Principles,  (N.Y.  Ed.)  p.  154. 
''op.  cit.  p.  122. 


6  LIFR,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

already  seen  that  the  Total  Energy  must  be  perpet- 
ually and  totally  active  ;  so  that  the  "Unknowable," 
as  in  a  state  of  perpetual  and  absolute  self-manifes- 
tation, may  just  as  well  be  named  the  Progressively- 
Knowable  to  the  finite  mind — the  progressive  aspect 
belonging  solely  to  the  finite  mind  as  advancing  in 
power  to  comprehend  the  changeless  Total  Power. 
In  other  words,  the  Great  First  Cause  is  not  merely  a 
chronological  first.  It  is  the  first,  last,  only  and 
eternal  Cause  forever  self-manifested  in  the  total 
round  of  Creation  as  its  infinitely  adequate  Effect. 
Cause  and  Effect  are  in  truth  but  complementary  as- 
pects of  the*  same  Total.  Cause  cannot  be  where 
Effect  is  not  ;  and  where  effect  is  there  and  in  that 
very  fact  is  Cause,  open,  manifest,  revealed  as  pres- 
ent, active,  actual  and  knowable. 

In  short  when  one  thinks,  really  thinks  and  does 
not  merely  follow  the  lead  of  his  phantasy,  concern- 
ing the  Total  Energy  or  Great  First  Cause,  he  cannot 
but  see  that,  as  applied  to  it,  time  has  no  meaning. 
For  it  there  can  be  neither  yesterday  nor  to-morrow, 
but  only  a  changeless  Now  of  absolute  perfection. 
Within  it  every  phase  of  change  is  perpetually  pres- 
ent. If  "here  and  now"  there  is  a  world  in  bloom, 
elsewhere  and  now  there  are  worlds  in  the  bud,  and 
yet  other  worlds  in  the  germinal  state,  and  elsewhere 
still  other  worlds  in  fruitage,  and  again  elsewhere 
worlds  in  decay.     In  the  total   round  of  the  manifes- 


THE    ORIGIN    OF   LIFE.     .  7 

tations  of  the  forever  self-equal  Energy,  the  full 
range  of  Integration  is  precisely  balanced  by  the  full 
range  of  Disintegration,  as  Mr.  Spencer  might  phrase 
it  ;  or  if  we  use  the  symbols  of  Heraclitus,  the  Way 
Upward  and  the  Way  Downward  are  the  unvarying 
reciprocals  of  the  total,  unchanging  Process  of  Be- 
coming. 

In  short  if  it  be  granted  that  the  total  Creative  Pro- 
cess— that  is,  the  entire  range  of  activity  involved  in 
the  conservation  of  Energy  throughout  space — is  a 
process  complete  in  itself  and  therefore  absolutely  un- 
changing, then  all  modes  of  existence  must  be  per- 
petually represented  in  the  total,  ceaseless  Result.  So 
that,  so  far  as  appears,  it  would  be  just  as  well  for  the 
"man  of  science"  to  dispense  with  any  further  efforts 
to  "put  back"  the  activity  of  the  Great  First  Cause  in 
time,  and,  instead  of  this,  to  devote  himself  to  lifting 
his  own  thought  out  of  the  forms  of  time  into  what 
Spinoza  calls  the  "form  of  Eternity  ;"  so  far,  at  least, 
as  to  recognize  the  presence  and  activity  of  that 
Cause  in  every  phase  of  reality. 

And  now  to  what  does  all  this  point  respecting  the 
"origin"  of  Eife  ?  Is  it  not  precisely  this  :  that  Life 
itself  is  simpfy  one  of  the  necessary  and  hence  per- 
petual factors  in  the  total  Process  of  the  Universe  ? 
In  other  words,  the  truth  appears  to  be  that  Life,  as  a 
necessary  phase  in  the  total  process  of  creative  Intel- 
ligence, must  be  incessantly   beginning  and   therefore 


8  IvIKE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

an  eternal  fad.  Thus,  as  in  any  given  locality,  mat- 
ter advances  in  this  process  "from  the  [compara- 
tively] homogeneous  to  the  [comparatively]  hetero- 
geneous," a  stage  of  complexity  must  be  reached  in 
which  the  transition  from  the  inorganic  to  the  or- 
ganic is  just  as  "natural"  as  at  another  stage  is  the 
transition  from  the  state  of  fusion  to  the  crystalline 
state. 

And  so  the  exigencies  of  the  case  do  not  seem  to 
call  for  the  importation  to  our  world  of  a  primordial 
germ  from  the  "void  inane;"  though  it  must  be 
confessed  that  the  conception  of  such  wondrous  voy- 
age of  Life  from  world  to  world  is  a  very  picturesque 
one — rivaling  more  than  successfully  the  celebrated 
Trip  to  the  Moon  on:e  made  by  a  well-kn^wji  French- 
man with  his  two  or  three  companions. 

It  would  seem  indeed  that  "the  man  of  science" 
should  be  the  last  to  complain  if  the  doctrine  of  the 
Conservation  of  Energy  as  unfolded  in  the  general 
theory  of  Evolution  is  taken  seriously  and  pressed  to 
its  logical — i.  e.  legitimate — ^conclusions.  This,  in 
truth,  the  man  of  science  himself  professes  to  do  an:i 
not  to  complain  of  anyone  else  having  done.  And  so, 
after  having  in  one  noted  representative  proposed  the 
solution  of  the  mystery  of  \\\t  origin  of  Life  by  \\\t 
importation  theory,  he  returned  to  First  Principles 
in  the  person  of  another  and  declared  that  "matter" 
itself  contains  "the  promise  and  potency  of  all  terres- 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   LIFE.  9 

trial  life."  All  the  world,  it  would  seem,  should  be 
•astonished  by  so  bold  a  solution  of  the  problem.  And 
for  a  little  whila  a  considerable  part  of  the  world  wis 
foolish  enou2:h  to  be  not  only  astonished  but  duly 
alarmed  and  even  angered. 

And  yet  what  does  this  latter  solution  signify  but 
that  scientific  eyes  recognize  matter  to  be  nothing  else 
than  a  mode  of  Energy,  a  mode  of  the  ultimate   Sub- 
•stance  which  one  may  just  as  well  frankly   name  the 
•eternal,  divinely  rational,  creative   Power.     In  fact, 
the  "man  of  science"  himself  is  coming  to  recognize, 
along  with  the  theologian,  that  all  these  later  discus- 
'Sions  concerning  Energy  are,  in  truth,  but  a  widening 
and  enriching    of   that  conception  which    men    have 
always  held  in  one  or  another  form,   and  which  they 
have  represented  by  some  such  term  as  "God."    And 
so  if  it  be  said  that  matter  contains  the  promise  and 
potency  of  all  terrestrial  life,  that  can  only  mean,  so 
•far  as  it  means  anything,  that  matter  is  but  one  stage 
or  phase  of  the  total  creative  Process  leading  up,  with- 
out the  least  break  of  continuity,  from  the  relatively 
inert,  space-filling  modes  of  the  divine  Energy,  through 
living  units  that  are  still  predominantly  physical,  to 
a  spontaneous,  divinely  gifted  unit,  capable  of  tracing 
out  the  main  threads  of  the  whole  wondrous  Process 
and  of  living  that  Process  over  again,  at  least  in  a  dim 
way,  in  his  own  conscious  existence. 

The  mystery  of  the  Beginnings  of  Life,  then,  is  no 


10  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

greater  intrinsically  than  the  mystery  which  inheres 
in  the  beginning  of  a  crystal.  The  same  totality  of 
Energy  is  required  to  explain  the  existence  of  the  one 
no  less  than  to  explain  the  existence  of  the  other  In 
the  one  case  indeed  the  unit  is  "organic,"  while  in 
the  other  it  is  "inorganic."  That  is,  the  one  per- 
forms certain  functions  requiring  certain  organs  ;  and 
the  performance  of  these  functions  is  itself  a  process 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  organic  unit.  The 
moment  the  process  ceases  that  moment  the  unit 
ceases  to  exist  as  an  organic  unit — a  fact  which,  it 
seems,  Aristotle  did  not  fail  to  notice.  For  he  is  re- 
ported to  have  remarked  that  a  hand  which  has  been, 
cut  off  has  ceased  from  that  moment  to  be  a  hand. 
It  performs  no  function  ;  there  is  no  function  per- 
formed in  it.  It  is  no  longer  an  organ  and  is  thus 
essentially  no  longer  in  strict  sense  organic.  It  is 
simply  equivalent  to  so  much  inorganic  matter,  as  its 
dissolution  or  "decay"  will  speedily  show.  On  the 
other  hand,  while  the  crystal  comes  into  existence 
through  a  process,  that  process  must  be  suspended  if 
the  crystal  is  to  be  preserved.  So  that  the  crystalline 
state  is  one  of  arrested  process  ;  while  the  organic 
state  is  one  of  continuous  process.  The  crystal  is- 
preserved  by  arrest  of  the  process  which  formed  it. 
The  organic  unit  is  destroyed  by  stopping  the  process 
through  which  it  has  coaie  to  be  what  it  is. 


THE    SIGNIFICANCE   OF   LIFE.  11 

2.      The  Significajice  of  Life. 

Thus  we  come  to  Mr.  Spencer's  definition  of  Life  as 
the  "continuous  adjustment  of  inner  relations  to  outer 
relations.'"  It  is  not  merely  an  adjustment;  it  is  a 
coyitimwics  adjustment.  And  this  already  gives  to  the 
living  unit  the  unique  characteristic  of  self-move- 
ment, of  which  characteristic,  as  Mr.  Spencer  de- 
clares, "the  lowest  animal  and  the  highest  animal 
present  no  contrast  more  striking  than  that  between 
the  small  self  mobility  of  the  one  and  the  great  self- 
mobility  of  the  other.  "- 

In  short,  if  we  begin  with  the  highest  organisms, 
and  if  while  tracing  the  whole  series  backward,  we 
note  the  steadily  diminishing  degree  of  self-mobility, 
we  must  expect  to  find  at  length  an  insensible  tran- 
sition from  the  unit  having  the  least  degree  of  self- 
mobility  to  a  unit  which  is  merely  inert — which  has 
no  self-mobility  at  all  ;  and  yet  which  has  the  pre- 
moyiition  of  self-mobility  in  'its  attraction  for  every 
other  portion  of  matter.  So  that  the  appearance  of 
the  simplest  living  unit  on  the  surface  of  a  planet  on 
which  organisms  had  not  previously  existed,  must  be 
but  the  next  natural  stage  of  advance  in  complexity 
beyond  the  ultimate  limit  of  heterogeneity  in  inor- 
ganic matter  as  such  ;  just  as  the  advance  in  the  com- 


^ First  Principles,  p.  84. 

-Principles  0/ Psychology,  opening  sentence. 


12  LIFE,   DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

plexity  of  organisms  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest 
type  is  but  a  further  manifestation  of  the  same  cre- 
ative Energy,  the  continuous  activity  of  which  can 
alone  be  conceived  as  sufficient  to  account  alike  for 
the  beginnings,  the  continuance,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  Life— whether  on  this  planet  or  on  another, 
from  which  latter  Life  might  in  vivid  poetic  fancy 
be  conceived  as  finding  transportation  to  this,  via  the 
meteoric  line. 

But  Mr.  Spencer's  definition  of  Life  presents  us  di- 
rectly with  the  terms  of  a  relation  which  it  seems  im- 
portant to  carefully  consider    The  terms  are  :  "inner" 
and  "outer."   Let  us  try  to  discover  as  precisely  as  we 
may  the  relation  here  involved.     And  first,  the  merely 
physical,  the  merely  space-filling  phases  of  existence 
appear  to  be  justly  characterized  as  purely  external. 
Any  given  mass  of  matter  is  said  to  have  its  outer  and 
its  inner  parts.     But  the  mass  may  be  divided  ;  and 
thus  parts  that  were  before  regarded  as  "inner"  now 
appear  as  "outer."     And  this  possibility  has  no  limit 
whatever  in  thought.      No  particle  of  matter  can  be  so 
small   but  that  further  division  is  conceived  as  pos- 
sible.    So  that  the  "inner"  parts  of  a  given  mass  of 
matter    must  always   be   thought  of  as  separable,   as 
being  side-by-side  with  one  another,  and    hence    as 
outside  of  one  another.     Hence  however   small    the 
particles  may  be  conceived  to  be  in  a  given  mass  of 
matter,   each  particle  is  still  "outer"  or  outside  of 


THE    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    LIFE.  13 

every  other  particle,  aad  thus  in  reality  presents  no 
phase  that  can  be  rightly  regarded  as  "inner." 

Thus,  secondly,  we  come  to  enquire  what  must  be 
the  nature  of  that  unit  which  can  rightly  be  regarded 
as  possessing  the  characteristic   of  internality.      And 
here  again  we  may  borrow  a  clew  from   Mr.   Spencer, 
though  it  is  not  so  certain  that  he  would  approve  of 
the  use  to  which  it  is  proposed  here  to  apply  it.     The 
clew  is  to  be  found  in  the  distinction  which  Mr.  Spen- 
cer makes  between  the  "objective"    and   the   "sub- 
jective."    The   latter    is   the    ''world   of    conscious- 
ness."    The  former  is  the  "world  beyond  conscious- 
ness,"   while  both  are    "manifestations    of   the  Un- 
knowable. ' ' '      Thus  the  physical  is  "objective' '  while 
mind  is  "subjective."  Things  are  objective.  Thought 
is  subjective. 

And  now  as  we  have  just  seen  that  things,  in  the 
sense  of  those  facts  which  we  know  as  the  "physical" 
world,  are  characterized  by  externality  to  such  a  de- 
gree as  that  they  present  no  phase  to  which  the  term 
"inner"  can  be  rightly  applied,  it  would  seem  that  if 
the  term  "inner"  is  to  find  any  point  of  application 
at  all  it  must  find  it  in  the  subjective  or  thought 
world.  And  this  seems  the  more  reasonable  when 
we  reflect  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  term  "outer"  is 


""First  Principles,  p.  156.  It  is  interesting  to  observe,  by 
the  way,  how,  even  in  Mr.  Spencer's  own  phrase,  the  Un- 
knowable, "manifests  itself" — makes  '\is^\i  know7i. 


14  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTAI^ITY. 

as  little  applicable  to  thought  as  the  correlative  term 
"inner"  is  to  things.  For  thought  cannot  be  conceived 
as  having  dimensions  in  space.  It  can  be  conceived 
only  as  an  activity  which  may  indeed  have  reference 
to  objects  occupying  space,  but  which  cannot  itself  be 
bounded  by  or  in  space.  Indeed  thought  has  certain 
modes  that  have  no  reference  to  space  or  space- 
related  objects.  It  may  be  directed  upon  mind  itself 
in  any  of  its  modes  ;  and  manifestly  in  such  case  its 
interests  are  essentially  subjective  or  inner.  It  is  a 
definite  unit  definitely  related  to  itself ;  that  is,  its 
activity  is  not  directed  upon  some  "outer"  object,  but 
is  concentrated  within  itself.  Self-relation — that  is 
the  essential  characteristic  of  mind,  and  self-relation 
proves  also  to  be  of  the  very  essence  of  internality. 
Mind  is  the  "inner"  then,  and  is  thus  the  antithesis 
of  matter  as  the  "outer." 

And  yet  it  is  important  to  note  more  explicitly  that 
"outer"  and  "inner"  are  not  merely  antithetical 
terms,  but  rather  that  they  are  correlatives,  and  thus 
that  either  term  in  isolation  must  be  wholly  mean- 
ingless. The  inner,  if  it  is  any  phase  of  reality,  must 
be  the  inner  of  the  outer.  The  subjective  is  such  only 
in  immediate  relation  with  the  objective. 

We  will  not  stop  here  to  consider  what  possible 
other  meanings  might  attach  to  the  terms  subjective 
and  objective  (as  that  in  the  use  of  certain  German 
thinkers,    where    subjective    means     "arbitrary"    o- 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE    OF   LIFE.  15 

'''capricious  ;"  and  objective  means  :  universal,  valid, 
true),  but  will  proceed  to  follow  out  our  newly  found 
•clew  in  its  application  to  Life.     As  the   inner    is   the 
subjective,  then  inner  relations  must  be  subjective  re- 
lations.    And  as  outer  is  objective,  then  outer  rela- 
tions must  be  objective  relations.     Whence  it  would 
seem  that  Life  may  be   redefined  as  the  continuous 
adjustment   of   subjective   relations   to   objective   re- 
lations.    And  if  it  be  objected  that  this  is  inappli- 
cable to  vegetal  life,  it  is  to  be   answered  that  the 
terms  subjective  and  objective,  like  the  terms  inner 
and  outer,  are  of  varying  degree,  and  that  wherever 
there  is  a  living  unit,  there  also  is  to  be  found  as  the 
central  factor  of  such  living  unit  the  quality  of  inter- 
nality  or  subjectivity.     The  more  advanced  the  form 
of  life  the  more  manifest  the  characteristic  of  subjec- 
tivity is  invariably  found  to  be.   Or,  as  Professor  Hux- 
ley has  said,  "The  lowest  plant,  or  animalcule,  feeds, 
grows  and  reproduces  its  kind.     In  addition,  all  ani- 
mals manifest  those  transitory  changes  of  form  which 
we  class  under  irritability  and  contractility  ;  and  it  is 
more  than  probable  that,  when  the  vegetable  world  is 
thoroughly  explored,  we  shall  find  all  plants  in  pos- 
session of  the  same  powers,  at  one  time  or  another  of 
their  existence."^ 

In  other  words  the  evolution  of  Life  is  the  process 


'Lecture  on  The  Physical  Basis  of  Life. 


16  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

of  the  unfolding  of  intelligence  in  ever-increasingly 
adequate  modes  of  conscious  existence.  And  this  is- 
shown  in  the  premonitional  stage  by  what  Darwin 
has  described  as  the  Power  of  Movement  in  Plants^ 
and  which  Professor  Gray  has  illustrated  briefly  in 
his  little  work  entitled:  ''How  Plants  Behave;'"' 
while  it  is  substantially  affirmed,  in  respect  of  the- 
more  advanced  order  of  life,  in  what  is  now  a  com- 
monplace of  science  :  that  the  measure  of  superiority 
in  an  animal  organism  is  the  degree  of  complexity  of 
its  nervous  structure,  which  is  of  course  in  its  tunx 
the  direct  instrumentality  of  intelligence. 

And  this,  manifestly,  is  in  perfect  keeping  with 
what  was  before  indicated  ;  namely,  that  the  various- 
phases  of  complexity  in  the  inorganic  world  cul- 
minate in  a  state  of  matter,  one  further  degree  in  the 
complexity  of  which  must  transform  it  into  living: 
matter  ;  must  evolve,  through  increased  complexity 
of  relations  in  the  external,  objective  or  physical  as- 
pect of  existence,  the  characteristic  of  the  internal, 
subjective  or  psychical  aspect  of  existence — the  latter 
being  destined,  through  unbroken  continuity  of  the 
Process,  to  advance  in  adequacy  until  there  arises  a 
being  of  the  highest  possible  type.  And  since  intel- 
ligence is  the  mark  of  superiority  (measured  physi- 
cally by  the  degree  of  complexity  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem as  instrumentality  of  intelligence),  then  the 
"continuous  adjustment  of  inner  relations  to  outer  re- 


THE    SIGNIFICANCE    OF   LIFE.  17 

lations"  must  as  a  subjective  process  consist  in^the 
advance  from  the  vaguest  phase  of  subjectivity  or 
conscious  existence  to  the  most  complex  and  ade- 
quate phase — from  an  amoeba  to  a  Shakespeare.  And 
that  contrast  which  Mr.  Spencer  finds  the  most 
striking  of  all  as  between  the  lowest  animal  and  the 
highest  animal — namely,  the  contrast  in  self-mobility 
— is  in  truth  essentially  a  contrast  involved  in  the 
advance  from  the  living  unit  which  is  predominantly 
physical  to  the  living  unit  which  is  predominantly 
psychical.  So  that  the  system  of  Evolution,  as  Mr. 
Spencer  presents  it,  appears  to  be  in  its  most  impor- 
tant aspects  just  an  elaborate  description  of  the  mode 
^in  which  man  is  ever  to  "struggle  upward  out  of  na- 
ture into  spirituality,"  as  Hegel^  had  already  ex- 
pressed it.  And  these  utterances  but  reaffirm,  each 
in  its  own  way,  that  man  was  "made  of  the  dust  of 
the  earth" — "dust"  being,  let  us  repeat,  nothing  else 
than  one  essential  mode  of  the  divine  Energy. 

On  the  other  hand  the  "outer"  relations  to  which 
the  inner  relations  are  continuously  adjusted  in  the 
process  of  life — what  are  they  ?  The  living,  the  con- 
scious, the  rational  unit  is  unfolded  through  a  con- 
tinuous adjustment  of  the  inner  or  subjective  rela- 
tions to  those  "outer"  relations.  Mind,  the  general 
type  of  intelligence,  finds  its  realization  in  each  indi- 


1  Werke,  2te  Auflage,  X-,    120. 


18  LIFK,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

vidual  thinking  unit  through  this  adjustment,  as  it 
takes  place  directly  on  the  part  of  such  unit,  and  also 
in  a  still  wider  sense  as  the  adjustment  takes  place  in- 
directly on  the  part  of  the  whole  race.  So  that  there 
must  be  some  characteristic  in  these  "outer"  rela- 
tions which  is  after  all  quite  like  in  nature  to  mind 
itself,  since  it  is  only  by  adjustment  of  itself  to  these 
outer  relations  that  mind  can  become  realized  at  all. 

And  now  when  examined  more  closel}"  the  whole 
range  of  the  "outer"  relations  constitutes,  as  alread}^ 
pointed  out,  a  system,  or  as  Mr.  Spencer  names  it,  an 
'  'established  order. ' ' ^  But  this  system  or  established 
order  maj^-  just  as  well  be  regarded — nay,  cannot  but 
be  regarded — as  the  Method  of  the  activit)^  which  the 
perfect  Power  or  eternally  self-conserved  Energy 
must  ever  exhibit  in  changeless  self-consistenc3^ 

It  is  evident  then  that  what  constitutes  the  sum  of 
relations  which  to  each  individual  created  mind  are 
"outer,"  can  hardly  be  anything  else  than  the  mani- 
festation, or  utterance,  or  outer ance  of  the  perfect 
Power  in  its  consciously-pursued  method.  For,  as  al- 
ready intimated,  the  "outer"  is  in  necessary  relation 
with  the  "inner," — is,  in  short,  just  the  outer  of  the 
inner.  And  when  we  consider  these  terms  in  respect 
of  the  total  Energy,  that  which  is  "outer"  to  the 
finite  mind  proves  to  be  nothing  else  than  the  ex- 


^ First  Principles^  p.  117. 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   LIFE.  19 

pressioii  or  complex  mode  of  manifestation  of  the  in- 
finitely manifold  Thought  of  the  divine  Mind — of 
that  ultimate  Internality  or  Spontaneity  which  is 
referred  to,  often  vaguely  enough,  as  the  "Great 
First  Cause."  It  would  seem  then  that  this  is  the 
secret  of  the  marvelous  efficiency  of  these  "outer 
relations"  as  stimulus  and  guidance  for  the  indi- 
vidual created  mind  in  its  struggle  upward  out  of 
nature  into  spirituality.  At  first  indeed  this  struggle 
takes  place  blindly  through  vague  instinct  ;  and  yet 
at  length  it  proceeds  consciously  through  realized 
reason.  It  is  thus  that  the  living  unit  of  the  higher 
order  adjusts  its  inner  relations  to  the  outer  relations 
in  the  midst  of  which  its  evolution  takes  place.  And 
this  unit  characterized  by  realized  reason  becomes  in- 
creasingly capable  of  tracing  through  these  outer  re- 
lations the  evidences  of  a  subjectivity  precisely  like 
its  own  in  nature,  though  also  immeasurably  differ- 
ent from  its  own  in  the  fact  that  it  is  absolutely  per- 
fect in  realization.  Even  Mr.  Spencer,  with  his  in- 
sistent use  of  the  term  Unknowable  as  descriptive  of 
the  Ultimate  Power,  finds  himself  driven  to  a  conclu- 
sion which  would  seem  to  be  not  far  removed  from 
that  just  reached.  For  in  tracing  the  relation  of  the 
"faint  states"  to  the  "vivid  states"  of  consciousness, 
he  notes  that  states  not  self-produced,  or,  in  other 
words,  states  not  dependent  upon  one's  own  volun- 
tary  activity,  are  inevitably    associated   with    those 


20  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

states  which  are  so  produced.  Without  voluntary 
activity  I  find  myself  experiencing  states  of  con- 
sciousness which  are  like  those  following  upon  my 
own  voluntary  activity.  And  along  with  the  former 
states  there  arise  'nascent  thoughts  of  some  energy 
akin  to  that  which  I  used  myself.  "^  In  other  words, 
I  cannot  in  reality  conceive  of  Cause  without  con- 
ceiving of  it  as  ultimately  a  conscious  Power.  I  can- 
not get  rid  of  the  conviction  that  body,  or  the  resist- 
ant, is  in  all  its  forms  merely  the  medium,  or  rather 
mode,  of  communication  between  initial  force  and 
initial  force — between  mind  and  mind. 

In  its  fullest  reality,  then,  life  is  a  psychical  process  : 
a  process  which  in  its  culmination  consists  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  activity.  Always  life  is  a  con- 
structive process.  And,  in  this  highest  range  which 
we  are  now  considering,  it  is  a  constructive  process 
in  which  intellectual  and  moral  characteristics  are 
the  chief  factors  concerned.  The  fixed  order  of  the 
World,  which  is  in  fact  nothing  else  than  the  Method 
of  the  perfect  Power,  precisely  that  is  the  sum-total 
of  "outer  relations"  to  which  the  thinking  unit  must 
adjust  all  its  inner  life  if  it  would  truly  live. 

Rightly  considered,  then,  this  constructive  process 
of  Life,  here  regarded  in  its  highest  range  of  devel- 
opment as  Life  in  its  intellectual  and  moral  aspects, 


^Principles  of  Psycho loi^y,  II.  475;  cf.  the  whole  chapter. 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   LIFE.  21 

is  but  a  phase,  though  it  be  also  the  highest  phase, 
in  the  unbroken  process  of  Evolution.  The  Total 
Energy,  forever  self-conserved,  cannot  but  ceaselessly 
unfold,  and  forever  present  in  its  own  unchanging 
T«  tality,  every  phase  of  this  Process  from  the 
simplest  to  the  most  adequate  phase  possible.  No 
factor  can  ever  be  wanting.  The  total  change-pro- 
ducing Power  is  itself  absolutely  changeless  :  while 
within  it,  as  'phases  of  it,  there  must  perpetually 
arise  living  units  of  each  and  every  degree  of  com- 
plexity, from  the  simplest  possible  organism  to  that 
unit  whose  nature  it  is  to  advance  out  of  the  passive, 
dependent  state  of  merely  initial  self-mobility  to  an 
ever-increasing  degree  of  activity,  of  independence, 
of  relatively  great  self  mobility.  And  what  in  each 
unit  begins  as  a  self-mobility  of  the  predominantly 
objective  or  physical  type,  changes  more  and  more 
into  a  self-mobility  of  the  subjective  or  psychical 
type. 

Thus  in  such  unit  the  continuous  adjustment  of 
inner  relations  to  outer  relations  rises  by  degrees  into 
a  more  and  more  explicit  adjustment  of  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  powers  of  such  unit  to  what  he  pro- 
gressively discovers  to  be  the  fixed  order  of  the 
world,  the  unalterable  method  of  the  Perfect  Power — 
to  the  modes  of  the  divine  Thought  as  expressed  in 
all  forms  of  existence.  It  would  seem,  therefore, 
that  Science,  as  the  process  by  which  man  comes  to 


22  I.IFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTAI^ITY. 

comprehend  one  after  another  of  the  various  phases  of 
the  fixed  order  of  the  world,  is  in  its  highest  signifi* 
cance  just  one  essential  factor  in  the  larger  process 
by  which  man  as  the  highest  order  of  living  units  is 
ever,  and  with  ever-increasing  success,  adjusting  his 
inner  or  psychical  relations  to  all  "outer"  or  physical 
relations  ;  while  still  further  factors  in  the  same  com- 
plex process  are  found  in  the  steadily  widening  range 
of  commerce  and  manufactures  guided  by  Science, 
and  in  the  means  to  the  cultivation  of  the  best 
qualities  in  the  individual  which  the  social  world  af- 
fords in  ever-increasing  degree  of  wivSe  elaboration. 
And  the  further  this  process  advances  with  each  in- 
dividual, the  more  evident  must  it  become  to  him  that 
the  universal  forms  or  modes  of  activity  manifest  in 
the  objective  world  are  after  all  precisely  the  uni- 
versal forms  or  modes  by  which  he  is  to  guide  his 
own  inner  or  subjective  activity  if  he  would  make 
any  advance  in  the  scale  of  being.  Mr.  Spencer  de- 
clares that  :  "If  there  are  any  universal  forms  of  the 
non-ego,  these  must  establish  corresponding  universal 
forms  in  the  ego.''^  And  why  shall  we  not  say  more 
confidently  that  the  universal  forms  or  modes  of  the 
Total  Energy,  which  become  more  and  more  evident 
to  man  as  man  advances  in  intelligence,  are  just 
those  modes  which  are  of  necessity  forever   realized 


^Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  36^ 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE    OF   LIFE.  23 

ill  the  Total  Energy,  and  which  man  realizes  .stage 
by  stage  in  his  own  life  ?  for  thus  and  thus  only  is 
the  evolution  of  man  in  the  highest  sense  to  be  ac- 
complished. That  is  the  highest  term  of  the  adjust- 
ment of  inner  relations  to  outer  relations.  That  is 
the  supreme  significance  of  Life. 

Let  us  dwell  a  moment  longer  on  this  point  of  in- 
creasing complexity  of  inner  relations.  We  have 
already  seen  that  advance  in  complexity  of  "inner 
relations"  is  essentially  the  same  as  advance  in 
psychical  qualities.  Besides  this  it  has  also  been  seen 
that  between  the  lowest  animal  and  the  highest  ani- 
mal there  is  a  striking  difference  in  the  degree  of 
self- mobility.  It  is  true  that  self-mobility  in  Mr. 
Spencer's  statement  has  direct  reference  to  physical 
activity.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  statement  is 
followed  up  with  an  elaborate  representation  of  the 
functions  of  the  nervous  system  as  an  agency  in  the 
production  of  physical  movements.  But  the  nervous 
system  is,  let  us  repeat,  the  direct  instrument  of  in- 
telligence ;  so  much  so  that  the  grade  of  intelligence 
possessed  by  a  given  organism  may  be  roughly  meas- 
ured by  the  extent  and  complexity  of  its  nervous  sj^s- 
tem.  Nor  is  this  a  lesson  offered  to  Mr.  Spencer; 
rather  it  is  a  lesson  to  be  learned  from  him.  Essen- 
tially then,  self-movement  proves,  on  final  analysis, 
to  be  the  same  thing  as  what  may  be  otherwise  called 
psychical  or  spontaneous  power — simple  spontaneity. 


24  I,IFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

So  that  the  extraordinary  self-mobility  of  the  inor? 
complex  or  higher  animals,  especially  as  represented 
in  the  highest  example,  man,  proves  to  be  of  the  ut- 
most moment  to  man  himself.  For  it  is  the  logical  out- 
come of  an  increasing  complexit}"  of  those  inner  re- 
lations which  constitute  the  living  unit  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  term.  And  the  central  factor  in  this 
complex  of  relations  is  just  i-^//*- relation,  under  the 
transfigured  form  of  self-consciousness.  For  self- 
mobility  that  is  transfused  with  self-consciousness 
can  be  (here  we  seem  defiidtely  to  part  company 
with  Mr.  Spencer),  nothing  else  than  self-deter- 
mination or  Freedom.  And  the  full  significance  of 
the  conclusion  just  reached  appears  when  it  is  recog- 
nized that  self-determination  is  precisel)^  the  central 
characteristic  of  the  Total  Energy,  the  "established 
order"  of  whose  activity  can  be  nothing  else  than  its 
own  consciously  pursued,  absolutel}^  self-consistent 
method  of  eternal  Self  realization.  Whence  it  ap- 
pears that  Life,  and  most  of  all  life  as  it  unfolds  in 
humanity  is  the  process  leading  ever  toward  perfect 
existence 

3 .  Death . 
It  has  been  seen  that  Life  is  a  constructive  process, 
or  a  phase  of  evolution.  We  have  now  to  consider 
Death  as  the  inversion  of  Life,  or  as  a  phase  of  disso- 
lution. And  first  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  from  the 
very  definition  of  Life  as  a  continuous  adjustment   of 


DEATH.  25 

inner  relations  to  outer  relations,  it  is  evident  that  in 
life  itself  there  is  involved  a  factor  that  is  precisely 
the  reverse  of  life.  For  a  continuous  adjustment 
implies  a  continuous  need  of  adjustment  which  must 
arise  out  of  a  continuous  undoing  of  the  results  of 
adjustment.  Continuous  integration  implies  contin- 
uous disintegration.  And  it  is  well  worthy  of  note 
that  in  so  far  as  these  complementary  processes  are 
balanced  in  the  same  living  unit  there  is  continued 
freshness  and  vigor  of  life  on  the  part  of  that  unit. 
So  that  from  this  point  of  view,  though  death  is  in  a 
certain  sense  the  opposite  of  life,  it  is  nevertheless 
also  a  normal  factor  in  the  total  process  of  Life,  and 
hence  is  after  all  not  to  be  regarded  as  the  mere  in- 
version of  life.  In  fact  it  is  this  ceaseless  reconsti- 
tution  of  the  individual  living  unit  that  makes  pos- 
sible and  also  perpetuates  that  extreme  flexibility, 
that  extraordinary  self-mobility,  by  which  the  living 
units  of  higher  order  are  specially  characterized. 

So  long  as  life  continues,  then,  death  continues 
also  as  one  of  the  necessary  phases  of  life.  Or,  to 
quote  again  from  Professor  Huxley's  lecture  on  the 
^^ Physical  Basis  of  Life'\-  "Under  whatever  dis- 
guises it  takes  refuge,  whether  fungus  or  oak,  worm 
or  man,  the  living  protoplasm  not  only  ultimately 
dies  and  is  resolved  into  its  mineral  and  lifeless  con- 
stituents, but  is  always  dying,  and,  strange  as  the 
paradox  may  sound,  could  not  live  unless  it  died." 


26  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

Only  wlieu  disiiitegratiou  becomes  predominant  is 
the  process  of  life  really  inverted  and  thus  presently 
brought  to  an  end.  And  with  the  ending  of  life 
death  must  also  have  completed  itself,  and  hence 
must  also  end.  Death  itself  dies  when  life  ceases. 
Equally,  too,  on  the  other  hand,  so  long  as  life  con- 
tinues, death  is  present  as  a  mode  of  transition  from 
one  to  another  phase  of  life.  So  that  on  this  side 
death  is  nothing  else  than  a  mode  of  change  in  a 
living  unit.  As  long  as  this  phase  is  subordinated 
the  living  unit  exhibits  the  characteristic  of  growth. 
When  it  exactly  balances  the  constructive  phase, 
the  living  unit  just  maintains  its  vigor  unchanged. 
When  it  becomes  predominant,  disintegration  of  the 
living  unit  has  set  in. 

And  this  is  true  of  the  living  unit  in  its  highest 
aspect  as  an  intellectual  and  moral  unit,  no  less  than 
of  the  living  unit  in  respect  of  its  merely  physical 
nature.  Indeed  the  living  unit  cannot  be  of  a 
"merely  physical"  nature.  On  the  contrary,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  it  must,  in  the  very  fact  of  being  a 
living  unit,  possess  also  in  some  degree  a  psychical 
nature.  So  that  in  reality  what  has  been  said  re- 
specting death  already  applies  to  all  aspects  of  life, 
the  psychical  and  the  physical  being  but  comple- 
mentary aspects  of  every  possible  living  unit. 

Thus,  as  scientists  are  coming  to  recognize  with 
perfect  clearness,  evolution  looks  both  ways.     There 


DEATH.  27 

may  be  degeneration  as  well  as  progression.  For 
death  may  be  prolonged  through  many  generations 
by  mere  degradation  of  type,  or  rather  by  degener- 
ation of  the  realized  forms  pertaining  to  a  giveji  type. 
And  thus,  though  evolution  may  be  said  to  look  both 
wa\s,  it  is  yet  true  that  evolution  in  its  normal  as- 
pect is  still,  as  Mr.  Spencer  has  defined  it,  a  progres- 
sive unfolding  of  reality,  including  living  forms,  and 
this  always  from  the  less  to  the  more  complex  ;  while 
on  the  other  hand  degeneration  is  in  reality  an  in- 
version of  this  normal  process  of  evolution — a  going 
backward  instead  of  forward,  a  mere  retracing  of 
steps  that  had  previously  been  taken  toward  the  ful- 
fillment of  a  given  type. 

In  other  words,  evolution,  whether  regarded  as 
physical  or  as  psychical,  presupposes  a  definitely 
fixed  type  or  types  some  advance  in  the  realization 
of  which  must  have  been  made  before  degeneration 
could  possibly  occur.  And  hence  if  one  holds  to  the 
conception  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy  as  in  its 
highest  significance  the  continuous,  perfect,  change- 
less, absolutely  self-conscious  Process  of  Creation, 
then  there  is  after  all  nothing  so  very  alarming,  nor 
even  anything  so  very  absurd,  in  the  view  that  these 
types  are  among  the  "pre-established,"  or  rather  the 
eternally-established  "harmonies."  Nay,  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's own  theory  of  evolution  implies  this,  as  he  him- 
self in   the    main  concedes,  while  at  the  same  time 


28  LIFE,    DEATH   AND    IMMORTALITY. 

giving  it  his  own  special  interpretatiou/  What,  in- 
deed, can  the  manifold  t3^pes  of  existence  be  bnt  just 
the  special  aspects  of  the  faultless  self-consistency  of 
the  divine  Energ}^  in  its  changeless  self-conservation  ? 
Even  as  commonly  represented,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Conservation  of  Energy  clearly  implies  this.  For  if 
we  may  conclude  from  the  relations  of  manifold 
"forces"  to  each  other  that  they  are  in  reality  only 
so  many  modes  of  one  all-inclusive  Energy,  then  it 
seems  equally  legitimate  to  conclude  concerning  this 
all-inclusive  Energy  that  it  is  the  self-moved,  spon- 
taneous, creative  Power  which  forever  manifests  it- 
self in  the  infinitely  manifold  forms  of  specialized  ex- 
istence. It  is  the  total,  unchanging  Process  of  Self- 
differentiation  in  which  integration  and  disintegration 
are  forever  exactly  balanced.  That,  doubtless,  is  the 
"ultimate  equilibrium"  which  the  Energy  consti- 
tuting the  reality  of  the  Universe  does  not  "tend 
toward,"  as  if  that  were  an  ideal  unrealized,  but 
rather  the  ultimate  equilibrium,  wdiich  is  the  more 
certainly  "ultimate,"  because  it  is  forever  mai?i- 
tained  in  the  changelessly  complete  self-manifestation 
of  the  Perfect  Power. - 


^Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  195. 


-There  is  surely  nothing  unwarrantable  in  regarding  this 
inference  as  being  no  less  truly  within  the  range  of  the 
knowable  than  there  is  in  regarding  the  inference  that  all 
"forces"   are   necessarily   the   complementary  modes  of  the 


DEATH.  29 

Thus  death  in  its  normal  aspect  is  necessarily  in- 
volved in  the  very  life  of  the  Universe  as  a  whole. 
It  is  the  phase  of  dissolution  necessarily  involved  in 
the  perpetual  Process  of  self-renewal.  Is  it  not 
reasonable  to  regard  this  as  the  w^ay  in  which  the 
Universe  is  forever  maintained  in  perfect  maturity, 
and  yet  also  in  the  freshness  of  a  newly-unfolded  cre- 
ation ? 

And  here  let  us  again  remind  ourselves  of  the 
fact  :  That  this  total,  self-conscious  Process  is  the 
ultimate  Type  of  every  thinking  unit  ;  the  type, 
therefore,  toward  the  fulfillment  of  which  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  such  unit 
must  ever  tend.  Equally  true  is  it  that  any  mode  of 
activity  on  the  part  of  such  unit  that  does  not  tend 
toward  this  fulfillment  is  abnormal — is  death  in  the 
sense  of  self-dissolution.  And  because,  as  being  in- 
finite, the  type  is  absolutely  fixed,  there  can  be  no 
variation  in  the  central  law  of  its  evolution.  Doubt- 
less individuals  and  races  differ  in  degree  as  well  as 
in  mode  of  the  realization  of  this  Type  ;  but  the  ulti- 
mate Type  itself,  toward  the  realization  of  which  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  all  normal  life  is  a  struggle,  is 
in  its  very  nature  something  wholly  unchangeable. 


one  truly  persistent  "Force"  or  Energy.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  certainly  is  unwarrantable  to  infer,  from  the  fact  that  re- 
lations are  everywhere  manifest  m  knowledge,  that  there- 
fore one  must  accept  the  relativity  ^/knowledge  as  the  ulti- 
mate goal  of  thought. 


30  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

But  thus  the  individual  thinking  unit,  struggling 
toward  the  fulfilment  of  this  Type,  must  find  his  nor- 
mal life  a  perpetually  expanding  one.  Integration 
must  ever  predominate  over  disintegration.  Com- 
plexity and  specialization  must  be  ever  on  the  in- 
crease, and  death  as  the  form  of  change  must  thus 
ever  be  a  subordinate  factor. 

Let  us  note  then  just  what  the  disintegration  will 
consist  of  in  such  normal  life.  In  the  first  place,  in 
such  growing,  expanding  unit,  there  will  be  on  the 
intellectual  side  a  progressive  discovery  of  the  in- 
adequacy of  views  that  had  previously  been  adopted 
as  satisfactory  ;  while,  secondly,  in  respect  of  the 
will  it  will  be  discovered  that  motives  which  had 
been  unsuspectingly  followed  cannot  be  reconciled 
with  higher  interests.  And  again,  sentiments  which 
had  been  entertained  and  cultivated  without  doubt  of 
their  excellence,  will  prove  incompatible  with  a  well- 
balanced  life.  Such  views  must  be  modified  ;  such 
motives  must  be  subordinated  ;  such  sentiments  must 
be  purified.  And  thus  the  individual  dies  to  one 
class  of  interests  which  he  finds  in  their  outcome  to 
be  narrow  and  unsatisfying,  and  yet  in  the  very  same 
process  discovers  that  his  life  is  expanding  and  be- 
coming enriched  through  attainment  to  larger  views 
and  nobler  motives  and  purer  sentiments.  It  is  thus 
that,  along  with  Paul,  all  men  sincerely  devoted  to 
right-living  "die    daily."      Nay,  in    the   communal 


DEATH.  31 

life  also,  death  is  an  essential  factor.  Society  in  all 
its  phases  is  ever  passing  through  Death  into  more 
adequate  forms  and  modes  of  lyife. 

But  the  very  fact  that  the  individual  thinking  unit 
belongs  to  that  type  whose  central  characteristic  is 
"self-mobility"  of  the  highest  order — that  is,  power 
to  choose  its  own  course  and  mode  of  activity — this 
very  superiority  of  man's  typical  nature  makes  pos- 
sible also  an  abnormal  life  on  his  part.  At  best  such 
individual  unit  is  but  imperfectly  developed  intellec- 
tually, and  hence  he  is  liable  to  error.  So  also  he  is 
but  imperfectly  developed  morally,  and  hence  he 
may  prefer  a  present  good  of  a  lower  order  to  a  de- 
ferred good  of  a  higher  order.  In  either  case  his  de- 
velopment must  be  impeded  ;  and  there  can  hardly 
fail  in  such  case  to  result  also  the  disintegration  in 
greater  or  less  degree  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
qualities  he  has  already  attained  through  the  normal 
life  he  has  hitherto  led. 

Thus,  to  use  the  ancient  phrase  in  a  modern 
way,  "sin  enters  into  the  w^orld,  and  death  by  sin." 
It  is  the  irrational,  self-contradictory  deed  that  con- 
stitutes "sin."  For  "sin  is  the  transgression  of  the 
law"  in  this  sense  :  That  the  "law"  is  just  the  ideal 
or  typical  nature  of  all  thinking  units.  It  is  there- 
fore at  once  the  divine  nature,  and  also  the  true  na- 
ture of  man.  And  this  divine  nature,  as  constituting 
the  "law"  which  man  must  obey  in  order  to  become 


32  LIFE,   DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

in  reality  what  he  is  in  type  or  Ideal  cannot  be  dis- 
regarded or  "transgressed"  by  him  without  involving 
him  in  self-contradiction.  For  the  typical  Self  is  the 
true  Self  of  each  and  all  such  units.  And  self- 
contradiction  is  the  process  of  self-dissolution,  of  self- 
destruction.  It  is  the  process  of  death  abnormally 
developed  into  the  zV/version  of  life  because  it  is  the 
/>^rversion  of  life.  Moral  death  is  but  another  name 
for  moral  self-contradiction.  And  this  is  the  abso- 
lute justification  of  that  seemingly  strange  saying  : 
"The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  A  life  of  sin 
is  simply  a  prolonged  death. 

Thus  death,  especially  moral  death,  is  seen  to  be  a 
process  always  more  or  less  prolonged.  It  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  the  vitality  of  so  complex  and  highly 
constituted  a  unit  as  the  human  soul  could  be 
quenched  in  a  moment.  No  single  act  of  self-contra- 
diction could  do  more  than  turn  the  tide  of  life  back- 
ward. Only  a  prolonged  course  of  self-contradiction 
could  even  so  much  as  threaten  the  utter  dissolution 
of  a  living  unit  belonging  to  the  highest  type.  And 
this  brings  us  to  the  question  whether  it  is  really  con- 
ceivable that  such  utter  dissolution  can  ever  actually 

take  place. 

4.     Immortality. 

It  would  seem  then  that  the  question  whether  if  a 
man  die  he  shall  live  again,  may  be  given  a  more 
hopeful    form.     And    that   form  is  :  Whether  in  re- 


IMMORTALITY.  33 

spect  of  man's  essential  nature  as  a  thinking  unit, 
death  can  ever  be  more  than  transition  from  one  to 
another  grade  of  I^ife — whether  so  complex  a  living 
unit  as  man  can  ever  wholly  die  ? 

To  this  question  the  answer  has  in  part  been  an- 
ticipated in  the  foregoing  discussion  of  the  nature  of 
life  and  the  significance  of  death.  We  have  seen 
that  Life  is  a  constructive  process.  We  have  also 
seen  that  in  the  continuous  adjustment  of  inner  re- 
lations to  outer  relations  which  this  process  is  other- 
wise described  as  being,  there  is  necessarily  implied 
the  characteristic  of  spontaneity.  Even  at  its  lowest 
grade  life  is  characterized  by  "'self-mobility,"  and 
this  quality  increases  in  complexity  and  in  positive 
significance  with  each  higher  grade  in   the  scale  of 

living  units. 

Indeed,    it    is   this   characteristic   more   than    any 

other  that  measures  the  degree  of  advancement  to 
which  any  living  unit  has  attained.  For  the  "inner" 
relations,  as  we  have  seen,  are  in  truth  the  same  as 
subjective  or  psychic  relations.  It  is  intelligence 
with  its  accompanying  moral  qualities  that  consti- 
tutes genuine  internality.  The  inorganic  world  is 
the  world  of  externality  ;  or,  if  one  will,  it  is  the 
world  of  Reality  in  its  aspect  of  extent,  while  Intelli- 
gence in  the  range  of  its  significance  is  the  same 
world  of  Reality  in  its  intensive  aspect.  So  that  in 
the  advance  from  the  inorganic,  through  the  various 


34  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

degrees  of  the  organic,  to  man  as  the  highest  or- 
ganism there  is  a  gradual  transition  from  those  aggre- 
gates of  mere  "matter"  which  are  wholly  destitute  of 
self-mobility,  through  the  automatic  phases  of  self- 
mobilit}^  manifest  in  the  lower  organisms,  to  the  unit 
in  which  consciousness  has  expanded  into  reason, 
and  in  which  self-mobility  has  thus  attained  its 
highest  type.  This  unit  is  indeed  a  bundle  or  com- 
plex of  "inner  relations"  that  has  become  unfolded 
into  an  organic  whole,  the  dominant  characteristic  of 
which  is  5^^- relation.  Such  unit  is  self-conscious. 
It  examines  itself,  criticises  itself,  condemns  or  ap- 
proves itself,  and  thus  shows  itself  to  be  its  own 
measure.     Mind  alone  can  measure  mind. 

And  now  as  to  the  nature  of  mind  something  also 
has  already  been  ascertained.  Chiefly  it  has  been 
noted  that  this  self-examining  unit  can  discover  no 
absolute  limit  to  its  own  development.  It  can  con- 
ceive of  an  infinite  Mind,  and  can  also  conceive  of  it- 
self as  progressively  unfolding  its  own  powers  to  in- 
finity. So  that  there  can  be  no  difference  in  kind 
between  this  self-examining  unit  and  the  perfect 
Mind  of  which  it  conceives.  It  is  also  true,  as  has 
been  shown,  that  the  perfect  Mind  can  be  no  mere 
abstract  Ideal  which  the  self  examining  unit  projects 
from  its  own  phantasy  ;  but  rather  such  perfect  Mind 
can  in  truth  be  nothing  else  than  the  aspect  of  perfect 
self- consistency  and  therefore  of  perfect  self-conscious- 


IMMORTALITY.  35 

ness  necessarily  pertaining  to  the  eternally  self- 
conserved  Energy.  This  indeed  is  characterized  by 
internality  or  spontaneity  in  the  highest  degree  ;  and 
the  universe  in  space  can  be  nothing  else  than  the 
perpetually  complete  utterance  or  ouieraiice  of  that 
perfect  Mind  as  the  absolutely  spontaneous,  self- 
moved,  all-inclusive  One  beyond  which  there  is  no 
realit}^  whatever. 

I  trust  that  no  apology  need  be  offered  for  further 
strengthening  this  phase  of  the  argument  by  refer- 
ences to  what  in  such  connection  will  doubtless  prove 
to  most  readers  an  unexpected  source.  It  is  indeed 
jiOf''fairly  certain  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself  would  re- 
pudiate the  claim  that  such  an  inference  as  the  one 
just  arrived  at  can  be  legitimately  drawn  from  his 
writings.  And  yet  there  are  numerous  passages 
which  might  be  cited  in  justification  of  the  claim. 
Nor  can  I  help  thinking  that  the  real  drift  of  his  sys- 
tem is  in  this  direction.  For  example,  in  discussing 
"the  perception  of  resistance,"  he  declares^  that  we 
can  know  nothing  of  any  other  order  than  the  order 
of  thought.  And  again'  he  says  :  "To  frame  a  con- 
ception of  force  in  the  non-ego  different  from  the  con- 
ception we  have  of  force  in  the  ego  is  utterly  beyond 
our  power. "  And  this  statement,  it  seems  to  me, 
can  have  but  one  meaning,  which  is  :  that  the  inca- 


^Op.  cit.  II,  233.        -Op.  cit.  p.  239. 


36  I.1FE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

pacity  we  discover  in  ourselves  to  form  such  concep- 
tion is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  non-ego  is  only  the 
outer  mode  of  the  ultimate  Ego — the  et-ernally  self- 
conserved  Energy — whose  fundamental  nature  is  re- 
peated in  the  fundamental  nature  of  each  and  every 
thinking  unit  throughout  Creation. 

But  still  further,  the  whole  process  of  evolution  as 
directly  affecting  man  tends  to  confirm  the  same 
view.  After  referring  to  the  structure  of  the  eye  be- 
fore birth  and  pointing  out  the  necessary  implication 
thus  presented  of  heredity  with  reference  to  the  life 
afterbirth,  he  declares^  it  to  obviously  follow  "that 
objective  necessities  of  relation  in  space  are  repre- 
sented by  established  nervous  structures  implying 
latent  subjective  necessities  of  nervous  action  ;  that 
these  last  constitute  pre-determined  forms  of  thought 
produced  by  the  moulding  of  Thought  upon  Things  ; 
and  that  the  impossibility  of  inverting  them,  implied 
by  the  inconceivableness  of  their  negations,  is  a  reason 
for  accepting  them  as  true,  which  immeasurably 
transcends  in  value  any  other  reason  that  can  be 
given."  But  "Things"  are  simply  modes  of  the 
Total  Energy.  They  can,  in  short,  be  nothing  else 
than  the  outer  exoression  of  the  fixed  order,  the 
method,  the  Thought  of  that  "Persistent  Force"  or 
divine  Energy  to  whose  activity  all   reality  owes  its 


Wp.  cit.,  II,  420. 


IMMORTALITY.  37 

being — in  whose  activity  all  reality  inheres.  Nay, 
our  "reasoning  itself  can  be  trusted  onl}'  on  the  as- 
sumption that  absolute  uniformities  of  Thought  cor- 
respond to  absolute  uniformities  of  Things  "^  And 
on  the  other  hand,  as  we  must  insist,  such  "absolute 
uniformities  of  Things"  can  be  nothing  else  than  the 
perpetual  manifestation  of  the  "absolute  uniformities" 
necessarily  inhering  in  the  Perfect  Thought  or  self- 
conscious  Method  of  the  Total  Energy.  Whence  it 
follows  that  the  whole  process  of  man's  evolution  is 
only  a  continuous  adjustment  of  his  inner  or  psychic 
relations  to  the  "established  order"  of  relations 
which  the  divine  Thought  exhibits  in  the  whole 
range  of  man's  environment — i.  e.,  in  the  universe. 
Doubtless  also  one  factor  in  the  cause  of  the  increasing 
complexity  of  psychic  qualities  exhibited  b}^  man  is 
to  be  found,  as  Mr.  Spencer  claims,  in  the  cumulative 
effects  of  inheritance.  But  this  appears  to  me  to  in- 
clude the  phase  of  self-mobility  in  the  sense  of  self- 
determination  or  power  to  choose  a  course  of  conduct  - 
either  consistent  with  or  contrary  to  the  "established 
order"  of  the  world,  which  is  also,  let  it  be  repeated, 
the  divine  Type  of  every  spiritual  unit,  and  hence  the 
divine  Type  of  man.  It  is  thus  the  evolution  of  man's 
freedom  no  less  than  the  evolution  of  his  intelligence. 
It  is  an  inherited  power-to-do  no  less  than  an  inherited 


^Op.  cit.,  II,  426. 


38  LIFE,    DEATH   AND    IMMORTALITY. 

power-to-think.  The  individual  responds  to  the  ac- 
tion of  the  environment — at  first  automatically,  no 
doubt ;  and  yet  the  resp07ise  is  a  reactio?i  which  be- 
comes more  and  more  manifestly  spontaneous  or  in- 
itiative until  it  becomes  an  explicit,  conscious,  intel- 
lectual and  moral  response  to  the  appeal  of  the  per- 
fect Intelligence  as  manifested  in  the  whole  range  of 
Creation.  What  else  is  Science  than  the  eager  re- 
sponse which  man  is  ever  making  to  the  divine 
Thought,  which  is  ever  appealing  to  man  through 
the  outer  forms  or  uttered  modes  oi  the  perfect  Mind  ? 
The  more  we  insist  upon  the  doctrine  of  Evolution 
the  more  are  we  bound  to  accept  its  legitimate  and 
inevitable  intimations.  If  man  is  what  he  is  by 
descent,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  can  inherit 
only  what  his  real  ancestry  has  been,  and  is,  capable 
of  transmitting.  And  that  "ancestry"  necessarily 
includes  as  its  first  indispensable  term  the  great  First 
Cause  itself.  Man  as  mind  can  descend  only  from 
that  which  itself  is  Mind.  "The  inconceivableness 
of  the  negation"  of  this,  as  we  may  well  say  in  Mr. 
Spencer's  phrase,  "is  a  reason  for  accepting  it  as 
true,  which  immeasurably  transcends  any  other 
reason  that  can  be  given."  And  Mr.  Spencer  cannot 
logically  protest. 

But  now,  to  resume,  if  there  can  be  but  one  type  of 
mind,  then  the  individual  thinking  unit,  which  may 
be  said  to  constitute  the  extreme  term  of  integration 


IMMORTALITY.  39 

in  the  total  process  of  Evolution,  must,  as  already 
shown,  be  possessed  of  precisely  the  same  typical  na- 
ture as  the  perfect  Mind  itself.  And  in  this  identity 
of  nature  on  the  part  of  all  conceivable  minds  there  is 
implicit  the  answer  to  the  question  whether  death  can 
mean  utter  dissolution  for  man  as  a  thinking  unit. 
For  on  the  one  hand  the  identity  in  nature  of  all 
minds  must  mean  that  each  thinking  unit  is  in  its 
typical  nature  infinite.  The  degree  of  its  present  re- 
alization may  be  ever  so  slight,  yet  because  it  be- 
longs to  the  same  type  as  every  other  mind  and  there- 
fore to  the  same  type  as  the  perfect  Mind,  it  may 
rightfully  claim  for  itself  the  full  import  of  its  infinite 
ideal  nature.  Nay,  it  cannot  divest  itself  of  the  full 
import  of  that  nature,  and  hence  it  can  neither  escape 
the  duties  nor  abrogate  the  privileges  pertaining  to 
that  nature.  Even  in  self-perversion  it  is  exercising 
its  inalienable  privilege  and  power  as  an  independent 
being. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  to  be  noted  that  such  ideal 
nature  cannot  be  his  even  as  an  ideal  or  typical  na- 
ture unless  there  also  belong  to  him  the  full  round  of 
conditions  for  the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  that  nature. 
But  because  his  ideal  or  typical  or  true  nature  is  in- 
finite, and  because  he  can  accomplish  its  realization 
only  by  progressive,  finite  stages  of  development, 
then  evidently  man  must  by  his  very  nature  be  des- 
tined to  live  without  end.     For  in  no  less  than  in- 


40  I.IFE,    DEATH   AND   IMMORTAIvlTY. 

finite  duration  can  he  complete  the  realization  of  his 
own  infinite  nature.  If  in  every  case  Life  is  a  con- 
structive process,  then  for  man  whose  life  in  its  essen- 
tial nature  is  of  the  highest  type  of  self-mobility  and 
whose  typical  nature  is  infinite,  Life  must  signify 
nothing  less  and  nothing  else  than  an  infinitely  ex- 
tended constructive  process — a  process  of  self-develop- 
ment, the  full  import  of  which  is  .nothing  less  than 
this  :  that  it  constitutes  the  constructive  realization  in 
his  own  personality  of  the  divine  nature  common  to 
all  thinking  units. 

On  the  positive  side  this  would  seem  to  be  the  an- 
swer to  the  quCvStion  whether  man  is  by  nature  im- 
mortal. But  on  the  negative  side  there  remains  the 
question  whether  by  persistent  self-contradiction  man 
can  ever  actually  accomplish  his  own  utter  extinc- 
tion. And  here  also  in  a  measure  we  have  already 
anticipated  the  answer.  For  we  have  seen  that  death 
is  in  truth  nothing  else  than  the  phase  of  transition 
from  one  to  another  degree  of  life.  In  the  life  of  the 
advancing  individual  death  is  present  in  due  subordi- 
nation as  the  elimination  of  factors  no  longer  tending 
to  increase  the  individual's  vitality.  Whenever  a 
factor  ceases  to  be  constructive  and  becomes  obstruc- 
tive, death  as  a  necessarj'-  phase  of  life  dissociates  and 
removes  such  factor  from  the  organism. 

This  is  true  even  in  the  merely  physical  oiganism. 
And  when   we  consider  the   intellectual  and   moral 


IMMORTALITY.  41 

life  then  the  spiritual  organism  with  its  vastly  greater 
complexity,  and  especially  with  its  immeasurably 
superior  self-mobility,  presents  the  aspect  of  death  in 
still  more  perfect  subordination  as  a  phase  pertain- 
ing to  the  total  development  of  the  individual.  Here, 
as  we  have  seen,  death  is  simply  the  progressive, 
conscious,  voluntary  elimination  of  inadequate  views, 
of  lower  motives,  of  less  worthy  sentiments,  through 
the  very  process  of  the  gradual  clarifying  and 
extending  of  knowledge,  the  strengthening  of  the 
will,  and  the  centering  of  the  affections  on  nobler 
objects. 

On  the  o'her  hand  the  individual  may,  through 
error  or  through  deliberate  choice,  pursue  lower  in- 
stead of  higher  aims.  Instead  of  following  a  course 
of  activity  consistent  with  man's  typical  nature,  and 
which  must  therefore  prove  to  be  a  constructive  pro- 
cess for  him,  the  individual  may  pursue  a  course  of 
activity  which  contradicts  man's  typical  nature,  and 
which  must  therefore  prove  to  be  a  destructive  pro- 
cess for  the  one  who  pursues  it. 

But  this  is  still  a  process.  It  is  the  inversion  of  the 
process  of  life.  And  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the 
inverse  process.appears  in  general  to  be  the  swifter  of 
the  two.  Disintegration  is  more  rapid  than  inte- 
gration. And  if  the  process  of  death  as  the  mere  re- 
versal of  the  process  of  life  is  the  more  rapid,  then 
death  as  the  utter  extinction  of  life,  not  only  for  the 


42  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

individual  but  also  for  the  race,  would  seem  to  be 
perpetually  threatened.  Indeed  it  would  seem  fairly 
inexplicable  that  life  should  be  maintained  at  all,  es- 
pecially in  the  moral  sphere  where  there  is  constantly 
recurring  hesitancy  and  frequent  error  in  judgment, 
constant  struggle  and  frequent  failure  as  against  the 
lower  motives,  constant  division  of  the  affections  as 
between  worthier  and  less  worthy  objects. 

But  though  in  general  the  phase  of  self-dissolution 
may  appear  to  be  more  rapid  than  does  the  construc- 
tive aspect  of  life,  yet  the  question  may  well  be  con- 
sidered :  Whether  after  all  there  is  not  a  more  or  less 
radical  difference  in  the  ratio  of  the  movement  in  the 
two  cases.  Progress  of  the  morally  constituted  indi- 
vidual means  constant  increase  in  complexity  of 
realized  power.  And  such  increase  in  complexity  of 
realized  power  can  only  mean  that  with  each  stage  of 
his  advance  the  morally  constituted  individual  pos- 
sesses not  only  a  wider  range  of  view  and  a  clearer 
comprehension  of  the  right  method  of  his  own  self- 
development,  but  that  he  has  also  increased  facilities 
and  means  for  accomplishing  his  self-development. 
So  that  his  advance  should  be  by  a  ratio  which  is  it- 
self constantly  undergoing  increase. 

And  this  view  appears  more  evidently  to  be  the 
true  one  when  we  consider  the  multiplication  of  the 
aids  to  individual  development  through  the  combi- 
nation of  man  with  man,  through  that  extension  of 


IMMORTALITY.  43 

the  constructive  process  of  life  which  we  know  as 
social  life  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term.  A  single 
illustration  must  suffice.  The  invention  of  the  steam 
engine  was  an  exercise  of  intelligence  with  immediate 
reference  to  the  emancipation  of  man  from  mere 
physical  drudgery.  Or,  if  one  will,  it  was  with  direct 
reference  to  the  more  rapid  accumulation  of  wealth. 
In  either  case  there  is  increased  means  for  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  advancement  of  individual  men. 
In  the  one  case  there  is  increase  in  the  proportion  of 
time  during  which  the  individual  may  use  his  ener- 
gies for  the  expansion  of  his  own  higher  life.  In  the 
other  case  there  is  increased  means  for  the  enriching 
of  the  individual's  life. 

But  the  invention  of  the  steam  engine  necessitates 
a  vast  expansion  of  intellectual  life  in  another  way. 
The  makers  of  engines  and  the  masters  of  engines 
must  be  men  of  trained  intelligence  and  also  of  moral 
self-restraint.  And  this  is  only  the  beginning.  For 
the  steam  engine  opens  the  way  for  the  fullest  effi- 
ciency and  hence  for  the  utmost  perfection  in  struc- 
ture and  in  rapidity  of  use  of  the  printing  press.  And 
this  not  merely  nor  mainly  in  the  matter  of  mechani- 
cal perfection  of  the  press  as  worked  by  the  power  of 
steam,  but  also  and  much  more  because  of  the  rapid 
and  extended  diffusion  of  the  products  of  the  press. 
And  again  this  opens  a  way  to  use  information  col- 
lected from  day  to  day  from  all  parts  of  the  earth. 


44  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

The  steam  printing  press  demands  the  telegraph,  and 
the  telegraph  in  turn  gives  to  the  daily  publications 
of  the  press  their  widest  value. 

But  this  also  ripens  the  demand  for  universal  abil- 
ity to  read.  The  steam  engine  and  the  printing 
press  and  the  telegraph  and  the  railway  lead  inevi- 
tably to  the  primary  school.  And  schools  multiply 
the  demand  for  books — ^^for  all  the  products  of  the 
press.  It  is  thus  that  intelligence  presses  upon  in- 
telligence, ever  stimulating  intelligence,  ever  multi- 
plying means  and  methods  for  its  own  further  ad- 
vancement. 

Nor  is  this  all.  For  this  intellectual  advance  car- 
ries with  it  inevitably  a  corresponding  moral  advance. 
The  very  publicity  given  to  any  unusual  deed  of  the 
individual  is  a  strong  stimulus  to  the  doing  of  praise- 
worthy deeds,  and  an  equally  strong  restraint  as 
against  deeds  that  are  certain  to  be  condemned.  The 
newspaper  is  the  daily  register  of  the  universal  con- 
science, and  thus  the  conscience  of  the  individual  is 
strengthened  and  constrained  more  and  more  to  adapt 
itself  to  a  rational  course  of  conduct.  And  beyond 
this  again  the  criticisms  and  comments  of  the  press 
are  as  a  rule  uttered  with  a  view  to  securing  the  ap- 
proval of  the  general  conscience.  So  that  there  is 
going  forward  a  ceaseless  process  of  the  enlightenment 
and  strengthening  of  individual  consciences,  the  re- 
sult of  which  in  turn  must  inevitably  be  the  gradual 


IMMORTALITY.  45 

elevation  of  the  average  or  general  conscience.  And 
this  extends  to  all  publications.  One  man  writes  a 
good  book.  Another  man  prints  thousands  of  copies 
of  it.  Tens  of  thousands  of  other  men  are  made  bet- 
ter by  reading  the  book.  Thus  each  rational  deed  of 
each  rationally  disposed  man  connects  him  with  all 
other  rationally  disposed  men  and  makes  him  strong 
with  all  their  added  strength. 

The  reader  can  easily  extend  the  illustration  in- 
definitely and  add  others  at  will.  Sufficient  has  been 
said  to  indicate  the  self-multiplying  power  of  a  rea- 
sonable life  And  this  in  turn  emphasizes  the  rea- 
sonableness of  the  belief  that  the  existence  of  a  unit 
possessing  this  truly  divine  quality  cannot  be  utterly 
destroyed  by  any  other  means  at  least  than  persistent 
self-contradiction.  And  one  may  well  inquire  whether, 
even  so,  the  persistence  in  evil  doing  must  not  be 
continued  to  infinity  before  utter  self-destruction  could 
be  actually  completed. 

But  the  immediate  question  we  have  now  to  con. 
sider  is  :  Whether  the  process  of  self-annulment  can, 
like  the  process  of  self-development,  be  self-acceler- 
ating and  hence  self-continuing?  And  in  seeking 
the  answer  to  this  question  it  will  be  well  not  merely 
to  recall  the  fact  already  noted  :  that  disintegration 
is  often  observed  to  take  place  with  greater  rapidity 
than  is  the  case  with  growth,  but  also  to  carefully 


46  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

consider  what  are  the  ultimate  tendencies  in  the  neg- 
ative process. 

Before  proceeding  with  this  particular  question, 
however,  it  may  be  remarked  that  there  is  strong  in- 
timation of  the  truth  in  the  generally  recognized  fact 
that  the  more  complex  the  tj^pe  the  greater  the  inter- 
val between  birth  and  maturity  ;  while  on  the  other 
hand,  maturitj^once  gained,  death  as  dissolution  must 
in  natural  course  inevitably  follow  at  a  period  more 
or  less  remote  as  the  period  between  birth  and  maturity 
is  greater.  The  ephemera  is  born,  attains  maturity, 
and  again  by  the  inverse  process  reaches  decrepitude 
and  death,  all  within  a  day.  Man  as  a  physical  being 
occupies  many  years  in  attaining  maturity,  while  the 
process  of  his  decline  and  dissolution  also  runs 
through  many  j^ears.  But  in  either  case  the  type  is 
finite.  It  is  therefore  certain  to  be  fulfilled  in  natural 
course  and  as  certain  to  undergo  dissolution  in  the 
case  of  each  individual  embodiment  of  the  t3^pe.  In 
its  very  nature  the  physical  unit  cannot  be  immortal. 
Indeed  the  most  dreadful  of  all  imaginable  conditions 
for  such  unit  would  be  just  the  incapacity  to  die — as 
is  vividly  represented  in  the  Greek  legend  of  Tithonos, 
the  human  husband  of  the  goddess  Eos,  who  secured 
for  him  the  boon  of  immortality,  but  thoughtlessly 
failed  to  include  in  her  request  that  this  should  carry 
with  it  eternal  youth.  In  short,  no  living  being  save 
one  whose  typical  nature  is  infinite,  could  be  immor- 


IMMORTALITY.  47 

tal.  And  for  such  unit  death  as  utter  dissolution 
must  be  no  less  unnatural  than  immortality  would  be 
for  the  unit  whose  life  is  essentially  physical.  The 
type  of  the  latter  is  finite.  Such  unit  must  therefore 
complete  the  period  of  its  growth,  must  thus  lose 
the  gift  of  youth,  and  must  inevitably  fall  into  the 
feebleness  of  old  age,  culminating  in  complete  disso- 
lution. On  the  other  hand  the  being  whose  typical 
nature  is  infinite  can  never  actually  attain  to  maturity 
in  the  sense  of  complete  fulfilment  of  its  typical  na- 
ture, and  hence  the  period  of  its  growth,  the  period 
of  its  youth,  can  nether  reach  a  natural  termination. 

And  now  we  ma}^  return  to  the  question  whether 
for  such  unit  the  period  of  growth  can  ever  reach  an 
unnatural  and  utterly  final  termination.  And  the 
special  form  which  this  question  has  already  taken  for 
us  is :  What  are  the  ultimate  tendencies  in  the  pro- 
cess of  self-annulment  on  the  part  of  a  being  whose 
real  nature  it  is  to  be  immortal  ?  At  the  outset  it  is 
evident  that  if  the  process  of  disintegration  should 
continue  with  even  undiminished  ratio  it  must  speedily 
result  in  the  utter  dissolution  of  any  finite  unit  ;  and 
much  more  must  this  be  the  case  if  the  ratio  be  in- 
creased.    What  then  is  the  fact  ? 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  for  the  indi- 
vidual as  an  intellectual  and  moral  unit  disintegration 
and  growth  alike  result  from  a  course  of  action  which 
the  individual    himself   chooses.        Intellectual    and 


A 


48  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

moral  growth  results  from  a  chosen  course  of  conduct 
which  is  consistent  with  the  ultimate  ideal  nature  of 
all  thinking  units.  Intellectual  and  moral  disinte- 
gration results  from  a  chosen  course  of  conduct  that 
is  inconsistent  with  that  ultimate  ideal  nature.  But 
in  either  case  the  power  actually  exerted  by  the  indi- 
vidual is  the  concrete  result  of  what  has  been  rea- 
sonable in  his  own  life  thus  far.  If  that  power  is 
still  reasonably  used  it  must  increase.  If  it  be  used 
unreasonably  it  must  by  that  very  fact  be  diminished. 
In  the  former  case  the  capacity  for  further  activity  is 
increased  and  rendered  more  complex.  In  the  latter 
case  it  is  diminished  and  reduced  in  complexity. 

It  thus  appears  that  with  every  self-contradictory 
act  of  the  individual  his  total  power  to  perform 
further  acts  of  a7iy  kbid  whatever  is  thus  far  diminished. 
And  this  necessarily  implies  that  his  power  to  per- 
form further  self-contradictory  acts  is  made  less. 
Whence  it  is  to  be  concluded  that  the  further  the  in- 
dividual proceeds  in  a  self  contradictory  course  of 
conduct  the  narrower  becomes  the  reality  of  his  life  ; 
and  not  only  so,  but  the  less  also  must  his  power  be- 
come to  further  reduce  that  reality. 

So  far  then  from  there  being  an  increase  of  ratio  in 
the  self-destroying  tendency  of  a  man  considered  as 
an  intellectual  and  moral  unit,  it  appears  that  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  case  the  ratio  necessarily  diminishes 


IMMORTALITY.  49 

with  persistence  in  a  self-contradictory  course  of  con- 
duct. 

And  the  meaning  of  this  can  scarcely  be  mistaken. 
For  though  with  progressive  self- annulment  the  indi- 
vidual approximates  toward  what  on  first  view  seems 
but  the  necessarily  logical  result  of  such  course — 
namely,  his  own  actual  utter  dissolution  and  loss  of 
identity — yet  in  this  very  process  he  becomes  less  and 
less  capable  of  persistence  in  any  definite  course  of 
action  whatever  ;  becomes  less  and  less  real  as  an  in- 
dependent, choice-making  unit,  and  therefore  be- 
comes more  and  more  dependent  upon  his  environment. 
And  as  this  environment  is  real,  and  as  some  phase 
of  good  must  therefore  constitute  its  nucleus  and  sus- 
taining factor  (for  the  good  is  the  only  ground  of 
reality),  then  there  is  necessarily  a  residuum  of  in- 
fluence for  good  in  the  environment,  however  low  in 
grade  the  immediate  environment  may  be.  And  that 
residuum  of  good  must  tend  to  prevent  the  individual 
from  sinking  below  the  grade  of  existence  represented 
by  his  immediate  environment. 

And  not  only  so,  but  the  more  dependent  he  comes 
to  be  upon  this  environment,  that  is,  the  further 
he  has  progressed  in  self-annulment,  the  more  com- 
pletely must  the  factor  of  good  in  his  immediate 
environment  prove  to  be  the  phase  of  power  which  he 
depends  upon.  And  as  he  is  thus  at  length  seen  to  be 
dependent  upon,  and  hence  to  be  thus  far  under  the 


50  I.IFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

influence  of  some  phase  of  Reason,  which  is  but 
another  name  for  the  Good,  there  must  be  a  point  in 
his  progress  toward  self-annulment  below  which  he 
cannot  sink  without  exercising  a  definite  power  of 
choice  in  opposition  to  the  phase  of  Reason  which 
constitutes  the  core  or  central  factor  of  reality  in  his 
environment.  And  yet  the  farther  he  has  advanced 
in  self-annulment  the  less  is  the  actual  power  o 
choice  he  possesses  to  resist  the  influence  which  the 
rational  element  in  his  environment  brings  to  bear 
upon  him. 

On  the  other  hand  the  fact  of  his  responding  at  all 
to  that  influence  shows  clearly  that  some  shred  of 
Good  still  exists  within  him  answering  to  the  exhaust- 
less  Good  above  and  around  him.  Only  in  so  far  as 
he  is  good  is  he  real.  And  onl}^  in  so  far  as  he  is 
real  can  he  perform  any  deed  whatever,  whether  good 
or  evil.  The  good  alone  is  persistent.  Evil  cannot 
so  much  as  bear  the  appearance  of  reality  save  through 
some  phase  of  the  Good  being  temporarily  perverted. 
The  ultimate  divine  Energy  is  in  its  very  nature  all- 
pervasive.  Omnipotence  cannot  be  withheld  from 
it  even  in  thought.  So  that  no  thinking  unit,  how- 
ever degraded,  can  utterl}^  escape  from  divine,  re- 
storing influence,  save  through  utter  annihilation. 
And  this,  as  we  have  seen,  cannot  be  accomplished 
save  by  persistence  in  self-contradictory  deeds  even 
after  the  individual's  power  has  so  far  approximated 


IMMORTALITY.  51 

to  nullity  that  further  persistence  in  the  same  course 
must  thenceforward  imply  an  increased  exercise  of 
power  to  choose  as  against  the  restraining  and  re- 
storative influences  in  his  environment.  And  yet 
with  each  additional  self-contradictory  deed  his  power 
to  choose  must  be  still  further  reduced.  Whence  it 
would  seem  that  utter  self-annulment  must  forever 
remain  impossible. 

But  habit — have  we  forgotten  the  fairly  resistless 
force  of  habit  ?  What  then  is  habit  ?  To  this  it  may 
be  answered  that  habit  is  definiteness  of  tendency  to- 
ward a  given  course  of  conduct.  It  arises  from  repe- 
tition of  like  acts,  is  strengthened  by  such  repetition, 
and  hence  by  such  repetition  is  perpetuated.  Doubt- 
less it  is  also  true  that  the  cumulative  effects  of  these 
repetitions  of  like  acts  are  inherited.  But  this  again 
presupposes  only  so  much  the  more  certainly  that  the 
order  of  the  environment  is  absolutely  fixed.  For 
only  so  can  habit,  as  one  phase  of  the  continuous  ad- 
justment of  inner  relations  to  outer  relations,  be  pre- 
served. Indeed  habit  in  the  higher  sense  constitutes 
the  concrete  form  of  self- consistency.  And  this  is  itself 
the  highest  term  of  that  definiteness  and  consistency 
of  conscious  life  which  originates  from  a  prolonged 
course  of  activity  in  unison  with  the  established  order 
of  the  world.  But  were  that  order  changeable,  then 
with  each  change  the  habit  thus  far  developed  must 
tend  to  the  destruction  rather  than  to  the  preservation 


52  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

of  individuals  possessing  it.  And  the  more  matured 
the  habit  the  more  certain  the  destruction.  Indeed 
the  whole  history  of  the  evolution  of  life  on  the  earth 
gives  continuous  illustration  of  this  fact  :  that  the 
more  definitely  an  individual  living  unit  is  adjusted 
in  its  essential  characteristics  to  one  special  set  of 
conditions,  only  so  much  the  more  is  it  by  that  very 
fact  doomed  to  perish  when  the  conditions  become 
radically  changed.  Nevertheless  it  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  this  change  of  conditions  within  a  given 
locality  is  still  but  the  manifestation  of  what  in  a 
wider  range  is  the  changeless  order  of  the  world  or 
universe.  And  the  higher  forms  of  life  give  proof  of 
their  greater  self-mobility  and  wider  range  of  devel- 
opment by  their  continuous  adjustment  of  themselves 
to  the  fixed  relations  of  Energy  as  these  relations  are 
progressively  unfolded  in  the  advancing  complexity 
of  the  local  conditions  of  life.  It  is  precisely  this 
continuous  conformity  of  the  individual  to  the  fixed 
relations  of  energy  exhibited  in  his  environment,  that 
constitutes  the  essential  condition  of  continuously  ex- 
panding life  on  his  part.  And  it  is  precisely  this 
same  steady  conformity  of  the  individual  as  a  think- 
ing unit  to  the  rational  order  of  the  moral  world  that 
constitutes  what  are  called  "good  habits;"  while  a 
persistent  course  of  activity  in  opposition  to  that  or- 
der  constitutes   what   are   known  as  "bad  habits." 


IMMORTALITY.  53 

The   former   course   is  self-constructive  ;   the  latter, 

self-destructive. 

And   here   etymology,   though  often    a  dangerous 

guide,  may  for  once  help  us.     Habit  is  from  habere^ 
to  have.     On  the  rational  side  then  it  means  that  the 
individual    has   certain    definite,  consistent,  rational 
modes  of  activity  ;  that  is,  modes  of  activity  by  which 
the  individual  is  more  and  more  fully  conformed  to 
the  fixed  order  of  the  moral  world.     On  the  irrational 
side  it  means  that  certain  more  or  less  gross,  irrational 
desires  have  the  individual;   desires  which,  followed 
out,   bring  the  individual  into  more  and  more  pro- 
nounced collision  with  the  fixed  order  of  the  moral 
world.     This  is  the  real  demonic  "possession."     And 
this  can   have  no  other  result  than  the  individual's 
own  undoing.     Good  habits  then  are  modes  of  power, 
while   bad    habits    are    modes    of   weakness.       They 
show,  not  what  the  man  is,  but  what  he  is  not.     The 
bad  habits  are  the  ones  we   "fall"  into.     The  good 
ones  are  attainable  onl}'  through  an  upw^ard  and  more 
or  less  prolonged  struggle.     Whence  it  appears  that, 
after  all,  the  question  of  habit  falls  within  the  larger 
question  of  the  general  development  of  the  individual 
which  we  have  already  considered. 

If  now  we  summarize  the  results  thus  far  reached 
respecting  immortality,  it  would  seem  that  on  the 
positive  side  man's  nature  necessarily  implies  his  im- 
mortality because  of  the  highly  complex  constructive 


54  LIFE,    DEATH   AND    IMMORTALITY. 

character  of  his  essential  or  spiritual  life,  and  also  be- 
cause his  typical  nature  is  infinite  ;  and  that  also  on 
the  negative  side  his  immortality  is  fairly  insured, 
because  from  his  very  nature  as  a  being  possessing 
the  power  to  choose  his  own  course  of  action,  the 
tendency  toward  disintegration  which  is  necessarily 
involved  in  the  choice  of  an  irrational  course  of  con- 
duct must  rest  upon  itself  and  ultimately  annul  itself. 
And  this  annulment  of  the  tendency  toward  disin- 
tegration on  the  part  of  the  individual  must  ever 
take  place  before  the  annulment  of  the  individual  is 
effected  ;  and  this  because  of  his  increased  depend- 
ence upon  the  element  of  Good  in  the  environment  as 
he  approaches  nearer  and  nearer  toward  the  final 
term  of  disintegration. 

The  individual  thus  remains  as  an  indestructible 
unit  whose  central  characteristic  is :  Power  to  choose 
his  own  course  of  action — the  only  restriction  upon 
this  power  being  that  from  his  very  nature  the  indi- 
vidual cannot  so  far  misuse  it  as  to  bring  about  its 
utter  destruction,  so  far  as  to  effect  the  individual's 
own  utter  annihilation.  But  it  is  also  to  be  observed 
that  so  far  as  he  persists  in  choosing  an  evil  course 
of  action,  the  divine  within  him  is  changed  inevitably 
into  the  demonic.  The  individual  who  refuses  to 
advance  through  rational  deeds  toward  Godhood 
chooses  by  that  very  fact  to  become  or  remain  by  so 
far  an  anti-divine  power — a  "devil."     And,  so  long 


IMMORTALITY.  55 

as  this  choice  continues,  by  just  so  long  must  his 
anti-divine  character  continue,  even  though  it  be  to 
eternity.  He  cannot  attain  annihilation,  but  he  can 
choose  the  never-ending  death  of  self-perversion. 
The  persistent  evil-doer  transforms  himself  more  and 
more  into  the  moral  deformity  of  diabolism  and  builds 
about  and  most  of  all  within  himself  the  hell  of  self- 
contradiction.  Thus  the  law  of  everlasting  punish- 
ment is  rather  the  everlasting  law  of  punishment, 
which,  being  interpreted,  is  :  "  Whatsoever  a  ma7i 
sows  that  shall  he  also  reap, ' ' 

One  further  remark  suggested  by  etymology  may 
be  added.  The  word  "individual"  has  come  in 
course  of  history  to  be  nearly  equivalent  to  the  word 
"person. "  Nevertheless  it  is  in  fact  simply  an  exact 
translation,  through  the  I^atin,  of  the  Greek  word 
atom — "that  which  cannot  be  cut  or  divided. "  But 
the  word  "atom"  became  fixed  in  its  significance 
during  the  period  of  Greek  speculation  as  to  the 
world  in  its  physical  aspects  ;  so  that  it  serves  very 
perfectly  the  needs  of  modern  science  for  a  term  ex- 
pressive of  those  smallest  divisions  of  matter  which 
occur  in  chemical  reactions.  On  the  other  hand  the 
word  "individual"  became  fixed  in  its  significance 
through  the  influence  of  Christianity,  the  latter  hold- 
ing up  to  view  the  spirituality  of  each  human  being 
and  insisting  upon  his  indivisible,  inextinguishable 
nature,  and  "his  ultimate  right  to  the  complete  fulfil 


56  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

ment  of  the  infinite  destiny  involved  in  that  nature. 
Thus  the  word  "individual"  is  found  in  modern 
forms  of  speech  as  the  name  of  the  ultimate  social 
unit  or  element. 

Already  with  Democritus  the  term  "atom"  as- 
sumed a  kind  of  transfigured  significance.  The  atom 
was  described  by  him  as  an  eternal,  independent, 
self-moving  unit,  which  became  aggregated  with 
others  into  larger  wholes  rather  by  accident  than 
otherwise  ;  these  larger  wholes  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  being  always  temporary.  It  would  seem  that 
in  all  this — unconsciousl}^,  doubtless — Democritus 
was  but  presenting,  under  a  universalized  image  con- 
ceived as  eternal,  the  fundamental  characteristic  of 
Greek  life — Individualism.  That  was  the  quality 
which  the  Greeks  so  jealously  guarded  against  all 
those  influences  tending  toward  tyranny  that  have 
come  to  be  classed  as  Asiatic.  And  it  is  no  wonder 
that,  in  the  first  great  struggle  for  personal  libert}^, 
an  extreme  view  should  be  arrived  at  as  to  what  per- 
sonal liberty  really  consists  in.  Thus  the  Individual 
in  isolation,  as  a  unit  complete  in  himself,  beautiful 
and  worthy  of  eternal  admiration,  even  though  it  be 
but  in  his  outer  form  preserved  in  marble — that  was 
their  Ideal,  which  they  still  further  transfigured  into 
a  multitude  of  gods,  each  also  serenely  perfect  in  his 
eternal  isolation.  It  is  true  that  a  fatal  defect  lay  at 
the   heart  £>f  this  conception  ;  and  even  the  Greeks 


immortai.it  Y.  57 

themselves  at  length  became  aware  in  greater  or  less 
degree  that  in  spite  of  their  divinity  such  gods  are 
still  finite  gods,  and  therefore  doomed  to  final  over- 
throw. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Roman  world  the  subordi- 
nation of  individual  man  to  the  law,  as  the  expression 
of   that   larger   personality    consisting   of  the  State, 
already  constituted  a  stage  in  the  process  of  educating 
man  up  to  a  rational  conception  of  his  universal  and 
infinite  nature.     With  Christianity  this  infinite  nature 
was  explicitly  announced,  and  each  man,  each  human 
being,  was  declared  to  be  in  his  own  person  an  Indi- 
vidual— an  indivisible,  imperishable  unit.     That  was 
henceforth  to  be  regarded  as  the  one  veritable  ' '  atom , ' ' 
the    one   genuine    monad    in    all    the    universe,    the 
changeless  type  of  perfect  Godhood  unfolding  through 
the  ages  in  each  and  every  human  soul.     And  inst^-ad 
of  saying  that  Christ  "brought  life  and  immortality  to 
light,"  it  might  be  more  precisely  descriptive  of  the 
fact  to  say  that  Christ  brought  life  as  immortality  to 
light,  in  the  sense  that  he  was  the  first  to  show  that 
life  in  its  highest  significance,  life  in  its  intellectual 
and   moral   phase,   already  involves  the   indestruct- 
ibility, the  immortality,  of  such  living  unit. 

It  is  this  view  of  immortality,  shadowed  forth  more 
or  less  vaguely  in  the  creeds  of  all  races,  that  has  be- 
come clarified  and  expanded  in  the  minds  of  the  more 
thoughtful,  until  at  least  the  clew  to  its  ultimate  sig- 


58  LIFE,    DEATH   AND    IMMORTALITY. 

nificance  has  been  fairly  attained.  And  the  process 
of  bringing  this  Ideal  into  fulfilment  for  each  indi- 
vidual has  become  more  and  more  apparent  with  each 
succeeding  age.  Not  by  isolation  and  self-deprivation, 
but  by  participation  in  the  universal  Life,  through 
science,  through  all  honest  work,  through  the  social 
organism  in  all  its  forms — only  thus  is  the  life  of  each 
to  be  rendered  concrete,  real,  truly  rational. 

From  having  been  abstractly  idealized  and  figured 
in  the  form  of  the  gods  among  the  Greeks,  man  is 
now  seen  to  have  ever  been  little  by  little  under- 
going transfiguration  into  a  richer,  nobler  life  that 
proves  him  to  be  ever  more  and  more  worthy  of  rec- 
ognition as  himself  "God  manifest  in  the  flesh." 

5.  Resurrection.  (A  Corollary'). 
If  God  were  not  manifest  in  the  flesh — that  is,  in 
space-filling  modes  of  existence — he  would  not  be 
God.  For,  as  ultimate,  self-conserved  Energy,  God 
must  be  manifest  in  all  modes  of  existence.  In  Him 
the  subjective  and  the  objective  aspects  of  existence 
must  be  forever  perfectly  balanced.  Thus  Schopen- 
hauer's epigram^  — "No  object  without  a  subject  is 
the  final  refutation  of  all  materialism" — presents  an 
essential  truth,  but  a  truth  so  expressed  as  to  make  it 
seem  one-sided.  It  therefore  requires  the  comple- 
mentary form  :   "No  subject  without  an  object  is  the 


'/?/>  Welt  als  Wille  und  VorsteUimff.    I,  35. 


RESURRECTION.  59 

final  refutation  of  all  mere  idealism" — that  is,  of  all 
idealism  that  assumes  to  dispense  with  a  world  in 
space.  For  mind,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  inner, 
subjective,  spontaneous  power,  and  can  be  conceived 
as  in  process  of  realization  only  through  the  medium 
of  an  outer,  objective,  passive  instrument.  Thought, 
to  be  real,  must  be  manifest,  must  be  expressed,  must 
be  embodied.  The  inner  necessarily  implies  the 
outer  ;  the  subjective  is  meaningless  apart  from  the 
objective  ;  the  spontaneous  finds  its  complement  in 
the  passive  ;  power  is  powerless  without  instrumen- 
tality. ' 

Whence  it  follow^s  that  the  more  adequate  and  con- 
sistent thought  is,  by  so  much  the  more  complex  and 
extended,  by  so  much  the  more  perfectly  adapted  to 
the  uses  of  thought,  must  the  embodiment  be.  Ad- 
vance of  thought  is  inconceivable  without  a  corres- 
ponding advance  in  the  physical  media  of  thought. 
Perfect  Thought  can  only  be  conceived  as  perfectly 
expressed.  And  "perfectly  expressed"  means  :  abso- 
lutely j^^-expressed. 

^Of  course  this  is  not  to  ignore  the  further  and  subtler 
meanings  of  the  term  "objective."  It  is  only  the  most  im- 
mediate, rudimentary  view  that  recognizes  nothing  as  '*ob- 
jective"  save  that  which  appeals  directly  to  the  senses. 
Images  formed  in  the  mind  and  appealing  directly  to  the  im- 
agination constitute  the  next  higher  sphere  of  objectivity  ; 
while  relations  which  present  themselves  to — more  strictly 
speaking,  in — reflective  consciousness  constitute  the  third 
and  highest  sphere.  We  apprehend  the  "objects"  of  the 
senses  ;  we  contemplate  the  "objects"  of  the  imagination  ; 
we  comprehend  the  "objects"  of  thought. 


60  I.IFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

To  this  view,  indeed,  science  is  ever  adding  definite 
confirmation.     In  the  field  of  comparative  psychology 
there  is  no  fact  more  clearl}^  established  than  this  : 
that  advance  of  intelligence  is  invariably  accompanied 
with  a  corresponding  advance  of  mass  and  complexity 
of  nervous  organization.     Nay,  advance  in  complexity 
of  structure,  especially  as  corresponding  with  advance 
of  intelligence,  is  true  of  the  whole  external  form  of 
embodiment.     At  the  one  extreme  is  the  amoeba  with 
lis  pseiidopodia  which  it  thrusts  out  from  time  to  time 
from    its   tiny   undifferentiated   mass.      These   serve 
alike   as    improvised   organs   of   locomotion   and   of 
seizure,  being  withdrawn  again  into  the  mass  when  a 
particle  of  food  is  obtained.     At  the  same  time  the 
food-atom  sinks  gradually  into  the  mass  of  the  little 
animal's  body,  which  becomes  folded  gradually  around 
the  food,  and  thus  constitutes  for  the  moment  a  simple 
organ    of  digestion.     At    the  other  extreme  is  man 
with  his  complex  structure,  having  specialized  organs 
of    locomotion    and    of   seizure,  as  well  as  a  jointed 
skeleton  and  a  vastly  elaborated  muscular,  respiratory, 
circulatory,  digestive  and,  above  all,  nervous  system, 
all  serving  to  bring  him  into  contact  with  his  envir- 
onment in  endlessly  varied  ways.     And  from  the  one 
to  the  other  of  these  extremes  there  are  innumerable 
multitudes  of  organic  forms,  presenting  in  the  whole 
range   a  fairly    unbroken  continuity   of    advance    in 


RESURRECTION.  61 

complexity  of  structure  corresponding  to  the  advance 
in  complexity  of  intelligence. 

And  here  we  may  profitably  refer  again,  however 
briefly,  to  the  identity  in  type  of  all  minds.     As  Mr. 
Spencer  seems  very  clearly  to  recognize,  and  as  he  in 
one  place^  at  least  explicitly  states  :   ''There  must  be 
some  form   of  thought   exhibited   alike   in  the   very 
lowest  and  the  very  highest  manifestations  of  intelli- 
gence."    It  is  true  that  his  statement  is  made  while 
definitely  looking  backward  from  man  to  the  lower 
animal  organisms.     And  yet,  logically,  it  is  and  can 
be  none  the  less  true  when  looking  forward  toward 
any    and    all   possible    grades   of  intelligence    above 
man,  as  man  is  known  upon  the  earth.    As  already  so 
often  insisted  in  this  essay,  there  can  be  but  one  type 
of  mind.     There  can  be,  and  unquestionably  are,  end- 
lessly varied  grades  of  realization  of  that  type.   Doubt- 
less there  may  be  and  are  in  reality  not  merely  indi- 
vidual but  also  national  "strains"  or  variants  from 
the  type.     But  such  variants,  persisted  in,  cannot  fail 
to  result  in  "arrested  development. ' '     Persistent  vari- 
ance from  the  type  means  self-contradiction,  means 
death.     And  it  may  be  remarked  by  the  wa)^  that  the 
ever-widening  process  of  intercommunication  between 
individual  and  individual,  between  nation  and  nation, 
between  race  and  race,  has  for  its  chief  value  the  edu- 


^Principles  of  Psychology ,  II,  398.     See  also  p.  475,  already 
referred  to  above,  p.  20. 


62  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

cation  of  humanit}^ — the  leadi7ig-out  of  minds  from 
the  dwarfing  influence  of  merely  local  relations  into 
the  enlarging  influence  of  genuinely  universal  re- 
lations. It  tends  towards  mutual  inclusion,  intellec- 
tually, of  all  men  ;  towards  prolonged  national  growth, 
and  hence  towards  the  elimination  of  national  death. 

And  now  let  us  note  some  of  the  conclusions  that 
appear  to  follow  from  what  precedes.  In  the  first 
place,  we  are  met  by  the  truth  which  presents  itself 
at  every  turn,  that  the  ultimate  Energy  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  just  the  Perfect  Mind,  and  hence  that  as 
such  it  must  be  perfectly  manifested  or  embodied. 
Nor  is  this  anything  else  than  the  obverse  of  the 
statement  that,  regarded  as  space-filling  Energy,  its 
activity  must  be  shown  as  the  unfolding  of  a  perfect 
method  ;  which  again  means  nothing  else  than  that 
the  "Persistent  Force"  or  Energy  of  the  Universe  is 
the  one  all-inclusive,  self-unfolding  Power  conscious 
of  itself  in  all  its  modes.  Secondly,  it  would  seem 
that  we  may  legitimately  draw  the  conclusion  that 
not  only  has  there  been  a  gradual  increase  in  com- 
plexity of  embodiment  through  the  various  advancing 
grades  of  intelligence  from  the  ai7tceba  to  man,  but 
that  as  further  stages  are  reached  in  the  advance  of 
mind  there  must  still  be  a  corresponding  advance  in 
the  complexity  of  the  instrumentalities  through  which 
mind  is  embodied  and  realized. 

Nor  is  this  without  its  confirmation  in  human  his- 


RESURRECTION.  63 

tory.  Not  merely  is  it  that  the  sense-organs  of  man 
seem  yet  to  be  undergoing  development  in  complexity 
and  delicacy.  But  with  every  stage  of  intellectual 
progress  man  has  shown  his  creative  capacity  by  in- 
venting new  instrumentalities  for  the  accomplishment 
of  his  constantly  multiplying  purposes.  On  the  side 
of  man's  physical  needs  this  is  familiar  enough. 
While  man's  merely  natural  phj^sical  organism  was 
the  only  embodiment  of  man  as  struggling  intelli- 
gence, he  could  do  no  more  than  creep,  snail-footed, 
from  place  to  place  and  must  depend  upon  the  spon- 
taneous productions  of  the  soil  for  his  subsistence. 
Danger  of  starvation  stimulated  him  to  the  discovery 
of  implements  of  agriculture,  as  danger  of  being  him- 
self devoured  stimulated  him  to  the  discovery  of 
weapons  or  instruments  of  defense.  And  with  grow- 
ing intelligence  these  instrumentalities  have  been 
multiplied  and  increased  in  complexity  and  efficiency 
'to  an  extent  such  that  even  here  we  have  a  fairly  ac- 
curate measure  of  the  enormous  advance  made  by 
human  intelligence  since  the  first  appearance  upon 
the  earth  of  a  creature  that  could  in  any  way  be 
rightly  called  man. 

But  still  more  evidently  has  man's  embodiment  in 
respect  of  his  intellectual  needs  become  greatly  ex- 
tended, though  here  too  the  new  instrumentalities 
constantly  reach  across  and  serve  as  means  for  satis- 
fying his  needs  in  the  physical  sphere,  just  as  inven- 


64  LIFE,    DEATH   AND    IMMORTALITY. 

tions  on  the  latter  side  are  themselves  the  expression 
of  growing  intelligence.  The  steam  engine  is  an  ex- 
tension of  man's  hands.  It  is  an  added  organ  of 
seizure,  of  manipulation,  of  mami-iactnre.  It  is  also 
an  extension  of  his  organs  of  locomotion,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  multiplication  of  his  power  of  transpor- 
tation. The  telegraph  system  is  a  vast  net-work  of 
merves,  reaching  out  to  every  part  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face, and  thus  organically  connecting  each  man's 
inner  life  with  the  lives  of  all  other  men.  The  print- 
ing press  is  the  medium  for  the  ever-renewed  em- 
bodiment of  all  that  is  vital  in  human  thought.  The 
telescope,  the  microscope,  and  the  'spectroscope  are 
but  added  organs  of  vision  by  which  man  is  able  to 
penetrate  ever  more  and  more  deeply  into  the  truths 
of  nature. 

These  and  endless  other  instrumentalities  that  man 
has  shaped  show  how  the  embodiment  of  intelligence 
may  be  indefinitely  extended,  and  also  show  how  the 
extension  of  the  embodiment  follows  inevitably  from 
the  extension  of  the  intelligence  itself.  As  man's  com- 
prehension of  nature  increases,  so  his  power  over  na- 
ture grows.  Knowledge  of  nature  has  displaced  the 
fear  "of  nature.  The  mystery  of  nature  has  given 
place  to  the  ministration  of  nature.  The  overwhelm- 
ing forces  of  nature  have  ceased  to  be  worshiped,  and 
instead  have  become  the  secure  and  efficient  agencies 
of  human  will. 


RESURRECTION,  65 

Is  there  any  absolute  limit  to  this  process  ?  That 
such  should  be  the  case  can  scarcely  be  believed. 
Mind  is  ever  the  same  in  its  typical  nature.  Its 
modes  of  development  cannot  possibly  contradict  one 
another.  The  same  general  process  of  mental  evo- 
lution must  go  forward  in  the  same  general  course. 
The  power  of  individual  mind  over  the  physical 
aspects  of  existence  must  ever  be  on  the  increase. 

And  death,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  but  change 
or  transition  from  one  to  another  mode  of  life.  Man 
as  a  thinking  unit  has  for  his  normal,  essential  life 
the  expansion  and  intensifying  of  his  intellectual  and 
moral  powers.  These  powers,  too,  have  constant  re- 
lation to  the  external  or  physical  aspects  of  existence. 
The  more  matured  his  powers  become  the  greater 
is  man's  ascendency  over  the  merely  physical  and  ex- 
ternal phases  of  reality.  Man  first  adjusts  himself  to 
nature  in  the  sense  of  tracing  out  the  method  of 
nature.  And  that,  let  us  repeat,  is  the  same  as 
tracing  out  the  manifestations  of  divine  Thought  in 
nature.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  in  proportion 
as  this  tracing  of  the  divine  Thought  is  accomplished, 
man  finds  himself  able  to  adjust  nature  to  himself  in 
the  sense  of  controlling  the  forces  of  nature  in  such 
wise  as  to  shape  physical  masses  into  instrumentali- 
ties, through  which  in  turn  those  forces  may  be  ren- 
dered efficient  in  the  furthering  of  man's  purposes  in 
the  present  world. 


66  LIFK,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTAI^ITY. 

Doubtless  it  is  true,  as  Mr.  Spencer  urges,  that 
man  is  just  the  logical  culmination  or  highest  pro- 
duct of  nature.  His  powers,  his  tendencies,  his 
passions,  are  what  they  are  through  that  measureless 
process  of  evolution  which  w^e  can  dimly  trace  back 
through  countless  ages  to  an  undifferentiated  nebulous 
mass  indefinitely  diffused  through  a  space  far  exceed- 
ing that  marked  out  by  the  present  limits  of  our  solar 
system.  But  it  is  also  true  that,  while  we  may  thus 
trace  back  the  process  through  which  man  has  be- 
come what  he  is,  to  that  aspect  of  existence  in  which 
(as  the  first  law  of  motion  practically  asserts),  there 
is  no  trace  of  self-mobility,  yet  through  this  same 
process  which  has  such  beginning  there  is  seen  to 
have  developed  a  phase  of  existence  in  which  self- 
mobility  constitutes  a  definite,  positive  characteristic. 
Nay,  this  special  quality  had  no  sooner  appeared  in  a 
given  unit  than  it  proved  to  be  a  characteristic  mark- 
ing off  of  such  unit  in  a  wholly  new  w^ay  from  any 
preceding  unit  within  the  condensing  nebulous  mass. 
And  the  further  this  special  quality  became  developed 
the  more  radically  is  it  seen  to  have  separated  the 
unit  possessing  it  from  the  inert  forms  of  the  inor- 
ganic world.  For  intelligence  and  self-mobility 
prove  to  be  but  different  aspects  of  one  and  the  same 
essential  characteristic.  The  more  definitely  special- 
ized intelligence  comes  to  be,  as  intelligence,  in  like 
degree  does  the  power  of  self-movement  become  more 


RESQRRECTION.  67 

defiuite.  Nor  may  the  factor  of  heredity  be  disre- 
garded or  lightly  esteemed.  There  seems  no  good 
reason  to  set  aside  the  long-established  though  vague 
conception,  which  Mr.  Spencer  has  more  definitely 
formulated,  that  the  accumulated  experience  of  count- 
less generations  becomes  organic  in  succeding  individ- 
uals ;  that  the  power  to  distinguish  between  objects  that 
do  not  serve  for  food  and  those  that  do,  between  objects 
that  are  to  be  desired  and  those  that  are  to  be  feared, 
becomes  ever  more  precise  ;  that  the  corresponding 
power  of  appropriate  self-adjustment  on  the  part  of 
the  unit  thus  affected  must  increase  in  precision  and 
efficiency  of  exercise  ;  and  finally  that  out  of  such 
mere  instinctive  self-adjustment  has  arisen  the  phase 
of  self-adjustment  that  comes  from  conscious  calcu- 
lation 

Thus  it  appears  that  in  its  higher  aspects  self- 
movement,  though  in  so  large  a  degree  organic  through 
inheritance,  is,  after  all,  an  inherited  power ^  which 
the  individual  finds  himself  capable  of  using  iyide- 
pendently  in  his  own  self- adjustment  to  his  environ- 
ment.  And  thus  the  further  the  process  of  evolution 
extends  the  more  significant  does  the  power  of  self- 
movement  become.  So  that  one  may  w^ell  agree  wuth 
Mr.  Spencer  in  the  statement  that  there  is  no  con- 
trast between  the  lowest  and  the  highest  organisms 
more  striking  than  this.  It  is  through  this  power,  in- 
deed, that   man  as  the  highest  organism   is  able  to 


68  IvIFK,    DKATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

control  with  ever-increasing  efficiency  the  very  forces 
of  nature  out  of  which  he  has  arisen.  It  is  thus  that 
he  is  enabled  to  make  nature  shield  him  against 
nature.  It  is  thus  that  with  increase  of  intelligence 
he  proves  to  be  an  ever-expanding  power,  reaching 
out  through  nature  and  moulding  it  into  an  ever- 
increasingly  complex  embodiment  of  his  intelligence. 
And  once  more  ;  since  nature  presents  itself  as 
nothing  else  than  the  outward  form  of  an  infinitel}^ 
complex  and  faultlessly  rational  process,  faithful, 
consistent  and  unwearying  reaction  upon  which  is 
the  indispensable  primary  condition  of  the  develop- 
ment of  human  reason — since  this  is  the  undeniable 
fact  we  are  driven  to  recognize  that  the  inner  Sub- 
stance and  vital  principle  of  Nature  is  actual  and  ab- 
solute Reason  ;  and  that  thus  the  arising  of  man  out 
of  nature  is  in  deepest  truth  the  wa}'  of  his  descent 
irom  the  primal  world-forming  Reason.  That  is  the 
true  "descent  ot  Man."  And  man's  self-adjustment 
to  nature  is  but  the  elementary  phase  of  the  total  pro- 
cess of  his  own  self-unfolding,  the  highest  term  of 
which  consists  in  never-ending  practical  self-assim- 
ilation to  the  likeness  of  the  primal  world-forming 
Reason.  Primitive  man — including  the  child  of 
modern  man — is  crude,  unrealized  as  man.  Hence 
is  he  in  that  fact  alienated  from  God.  Civilization, 
culture,  religion — these  constitute  the  way  of  his  re- 
turn to  God. 


RESURRECTION.  69 

It  is  to  be  noted,  too,  that  man's  increase  of  power 
over  nature  is  manifest  in  another  significant  way. 
The  extension  of  man's  embodiment  is  an  extension 
of  his  efficient  energy  without  increase  in  the  cum- 
brousness  of  the  physical  aspect  of  his  own  per- 
sonality. In  other  words,  extension  of  man's  em- 
bDdiment  means  simply  extension  of  instrumentali- 
ties under  his  control — of  instrumentalities  that  can 
be  taken  up  and  put  down  at  pleasure. 

Thus  man's  eavironment  becomes  gradually  trans- 
formed into  man's  embodiment — into  more  and  more 
perfectly  specialized  instrumentality,  serving  the 
purpose  both  of  his  self-manifestation  and  of  his 
further  growth  as  a  living  unit  of  the  highest  order  ; 
as  a  living  unit  possessed  of  intelligence  and  self- 
mobility  so  matured  and  interfused  as  to  make  cer- 
tain the  unlimited  extension  of  his  existence. 

But  increase  of  intelligence  means  increase  of 
power  to  apprehend  and  finally  to  comprehend  in 
ever  greater  degree  the  "established  order"  of  the 
universe.  In  other  words,  it  is  increase  of  power  to 
trace  out  and  more  and  more  adequately  think  the 
Thought  of  the  Perfect  Mind,  as  that  is  forever  mani- 
fested in  the  Universe  ;  while  increase  of  self- 
mobility  is  increase  of  power  to  adjust  oneself  to  that 
order,  to  live  in  harmony  with  the  law  of  Reason, 
which  is  the  law  of  all  genuine  Reality.  Intelligence 
is  power  to  know  the  Truth.     Self-mobility  (or  will) 


70  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTAI.ITY. 

is  power  to  live  the  Truth.  And  as  these  two  as- 
pects of  living  units  expand  into  their  fuller  signifi- 
cance and  rise  into  their  maturer  forms  in  man  they 
constitute  the  vital  characteristic  which  may  well  be 
named  Freedom.  For  if  Freedom  has  an}^  meaning 
at  all,  it  can  be  nothing  else  than  this  :  Conscious, 
glad  conformity  to  Reason — that  is,  to  the  "estab- 
lished order"  of  the  world.  And  from  this  definition 
of  Freedom  it  ma}-  be  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself 
would  not  seriously  dissent ;  though  a  hasty  reading 
of  his  chapter  on  "The  Will,"  can  hardly  fail  to  lead 
one  to  infer  that  w^e  w^ould  dissent  very  emphatically. 
And  yet  that  "freedom  of  the  will"  which  he  and 
others  regard  as  impossible  appears  rather  to  be  that 
immature,  merely  instinctive  phase  of  will  commonly 
known  as  wilfulness  or  caprice,  which  of  course  is 
self-contradictory  and  hence  not  free  ;  while  in  its 
proper  significance  the  will  is  free  or  it  is  not  zuill  at 
all.  For,  as  already  indicated,  each  concrete  will  is 
an  evolved  power  which  in  its  very  nature  implies 
freedom.  Indeed,  as  Hegel  has  remarked,  "Will 
without  freedom  is  an  empty  word."  And  if  one  re- 
calls Locke's  subtlety  that  the  will,  being  a  power, 
cannot  be  free  though  man  as  the  agent  possessing 
the  power  is  free,^  Hegel  again  furnishes  an  answer 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  doctrine  of  evolution  (for 


^  Of  the  Hmnan  Understanding.  Book  II,Ch.XXr,Sec.  19. 


RESURRECTION.  71 

Hegel  himself  was  a  most  thorough-going  evolu- 
tionist), to  the  effect  that  "the  difference  between 
thought  and  will  is  merely  that  between  the  theoreti- 
cal and  the  practical  attitude  [of  mind].  Indeed 
there  are  not  two  powers.  Rather  the  will  is  itself  a 
special  mode  of  thought.  It  is  thought  translating 
itself  into  practical  forms  of  existence.'" 

Thus  the  conclusion  to  which  the  foregoing  argu- 
ment has  led  seems  not  only  in  accordance  with  the 
truth,  but  also  to  be  the  legitimate  outcome  of  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution  as  a  whole,  even  as  formulated  by 
Mr.  Spencer  himself. 

And  now  let  us  see  what  bearing  all  this  may  have 
upon  the  question  of  the  "Resurrection."  As  com- 
monly understood,  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection 
-has  passed  out  of  notice  among  thinking  men,  as  a 
curious  piece  of  symbolism  belonging  to  an  unen- 
lightened age. 

And  yet  the  more  carefully  the  symbols  of  earlier 
ages  are  examined,  the  more  they  are  found  each  to 
involve  some  shred  at  least  of  truth.  Is  this  symbol 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  an  exceptional  one  ? 
We  have  only  to  refer  to  what  precedes  to  find  an 
answer  ;  and,  I  cannot  but  think,  the  true  answer. 
Mind  is,  as  we  have  seen,  no  less  unthinkable  apart 
from   its    manifestation   or  embodiment   than  is  the 


^Philosophie  des  Rechts.  8,33.     (3te  Auflage). 


72  I^IFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

latter  apart  from  the  former.  Mind  and  matter  are 
the  two  complementary,  absolutely  inseparable  fac- 
tors of  the  totality  of  Existence.  And  along  with 
this  we  have  also  seen  that  death  is  but  transition 
or  change — that  in  such  a  being  as  man  it  is  but 
transition  from  one  to  another  phase  of  life.  And 
finally  we  have  seen  how  with  every  advance  of  in- 
telligence there  is  necessarily  a  corresponding  in- 
crease in  extent  and  complexity  of  embodiment.  Is 
it  conceivable,  then,  that  in  the  very  progress  of  the 
modes  of  existence  there  should  at  length  be  reached 
a  stage  at  which  death  should  prove  to  be  a  sudden 
transition  from  a  state  of  expanding  embodiment  to  a 
state  of  literally  no-embodiment  for  the  mind  ?  And 
what  indeed  could  the  latter  state  be  but  a  "state"  of 
utter  annihilation — a  complete  severance  of  the  indi- 
vidual from  all  relation  to  the  modes  of  manifestation 
of  the  divine  Thought  ? 

If  what  is  called  the  "future"  life  is  really  to  be 
Life,  it  must  be  a  continuance  of  the  spiritual  exist- 
ence of  man  ;  that  is,  a  continuance  of  the  exercise  of 
those  intellectual  and  moral  powers  (or  rather  modes 
of  power),  by  which  alone  he  can  be  conceived  as  im- 
mortal. And  so  far  as  these  powers  are  realized  in 
any  given  unit  they  imply  a  corresponding  range  of 
control  over  material  forms  of  existence.  Not,  of 
course,  that  such  unit  can  be  conceived  as  having  in 
any  slightest  degree  a  power  to  alter  the  laws  of  na- 


RESURRKCTION.  73 

ture,  to  change  the  "established  order"  of  the  world  ; 
but  that  through  knowledge  of  those  laws  he  may- 
take  advantage  of  them  and  b}^  conforming  to  them 
may  still  secure  the  accomplishment  of  his  own  ra- 
tional purposes  through  them.  And  those  purposes 
can  be  essentially  nothing  else  than  the  further  ex- 
pansion of  those  same  intellectual  and  moral  powers 
through  a  continued  search  after  the  Truth  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  infinitely  varied  forms  of  Reality,  inter- 
fused with  a  like  continuous  effort  to  conform  in  all 
the  modes  of  the  individual  life  to  the  Truth  thus  dis- 
covered. 

And  as  this  implies  the  constant  association  of 
growing  mind  with  growing  mind  it  necessarily  also 
implies  the  existence  of  appropriate  and  indispensable 
media  of  association — that  is,  some  kind  of  embodi- 
ment. But  also,  as  increase  in  intellectual  and  moral 
power  means  increased  capacity  to  mould  nature  in- 
to the  appropriate  embodiment  of  the  individual 
mind,  so  it  would  seem  reasonable  to  conclude  that 
through  the  whole  range  of  existence  of  the  indi- 
vidual thinking  unit  there  must  be  a  continuance  of 
the  same  process  which  we  now  see  to  be  going  for- 
ward ;  the  process,  namely,  of  extending  the  range  of 
embodiment  of  such  unit  along  with  the  expansion  of 
its  inner  reality,  and  of  rendering  that  embodiment 
more  and  more  delicately  and  subtly  adapted  to  the 
individuaPs  needs.     Does  not  the  continuity  of  Life 


74  LIFE,    DEATH    AND    IMMORTALITY. 

aud  its  modes  warrant  us  in  drawing  this  inference 
from  our  observations  and  experiments  in  the  only 
field  where  we  can  actually  study  the  nature  of  mind 
and  the  modes  of  its  advancement  ? 

Thus  far  it  would  seem  reasonable  to  draw  a  posi- 
tive conclusion.  The  progress  of  individual  minds 
each  toward  the  fulfilment  in  itself  of  the  one  typical 
nature  of  all  possible  minds  must  be  by  a  method  as 
unalterable  as  is  the  type  itself. 

But  if  we  attempt  to  picture  to  ourselves  precisely 
what  will  be  the  form  or  series  of  forms  of  the  em- 
bodiment that  will  suffice  for  the  needs  of  a  given 
thinking  unit  in  its  successive  stages  of  advancement, 
then  we  find  ourselves  wholly  at  a  loss.  The  general 
conditions  of  the  Life  after  Death — and  that  can  of 
course  mean  nothing  else  than  the  continued  life  of 
the  individual  thinking  unit  after  the  dissolution  of 
the  present  form  of  embodiment — can  be  thought  out, 
because  those  conditions  join  on  to  what  we  already 
know  concerning  the  nature  of  the  individual  think- 
ing unit.  And  we  may  also  fairly  conclude  that,  the 
more  advanced  the  life  of  such  unit  becomes,  the 
more  extended  and  complex  must  its  embodiment  be- 
come also  But  just  for  that  reason  it  is  wholly  im- 
possible to  anticipate  what  the  precise  form  of  the  em- 
bodiment may  be  at  any  given  stage. 

Nevertheless  one  further  inference  at  least  seems 
reasonable,  though  this  is  on  the  negative  side.     It 


RESURRECTION.  .  75 

is,  that  with  the  increased  vitality  of  the  individual 
thinking  unit  there  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  less  and 
less  dependence  upon  any  one  specific  form  of  em- 
bodiment ;  just  as  with  the  expansion  of  the  life  of 
such  unit  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  increased 
multiplicity  and  delicacy  of  forms  must  be  demanded 
to  supply  the  widening  range  of  instrumentality  to  a 
power  whose  growth  in  extent  and  complexity  has  no 
conceivable  limit. 

Finally,  as  everyone  knows,  ''resurrection"  means, 
etymologically,  a  "rising-again."  And  this  presents 
an  ultimate,  transfigured  meaning  that  is  essential 
and  valid.  It  is  this  :  With  every  sincere,  consistent 
effort,  Man — he  who  thinks — rises  out  of  a  narrower 
into  a  wider  life  ;  rises  from  a  less  worthy  into  a 
worthier  existence  ;  rises  out  of  his  merely  "natural" 
or  predominently  physical  range  of  interests  into  the 
sphere  of  spiritual  interests — interests  which  are,  in 
truth,  to  so  highly  endowed  a  unit,  still  more  natural 
than  are  the  physical. 

And  so  Resurrection  proves  to  be  a  name  for  that 
perpetual  process  through  which,  stage  by  stage,  man 
becomes  in  reality  what  he  is  in  Ideal  or  Type.  That 
is,  in  its  most  vital  significance,  Resurrection  is  an 
eternal  factor  in  the  life  of  Man  the  immortal.  It  is  / 
the  never-ending  process  of  the  transfiguration  of 
Man  as  the  eternally  begotten  Son  of  God. 


J 


11. 

ORIENTAIv  RELIGIONS. 


Religion  is  a  process.  It  is  the  mode  of  activity 
by  which  the  individual  spirit  strives  to  bring  itself 
into  harmonious  relation  with  the  highest  Power. 
It  is  the  vital  process  of  the  spiritual  evolution  of 
man.  It  is  primarily  the  concentration  of  the  ener- 
gies of  the  soul  upon  interests  assumed  to  be  of  a  per- 
manent character.  The  objects  of  religion  are 
"things  eternal."  These  pertain  to  the  inner  life  of 
man,  and  come  at  length  to  be  sharply  contrasted 
with  "things  temporal,"  with  the  changing  phases 
of  the  outer  world  of  space  and  time.  Thus,  religion 
in  its  essence  stands  in  antithetical  relation  to  all 
that  is  external  and  formal. 

At  the  same  time,  religion  can  attain  realization  in 
the  life  of  man  only  through  the  association  of  man 
with  man.  Man  gathers  some  faint  intimation  of  the 
Divine  through  his  relation  to  the  physical  world 
about  him,  but  most  of  all  does  man  discover  his  re- 
lation to  the  Divine  through  his  relation  to  his  fellow- 
man.  But  these  relations  are  expressible  only 
through  external  signs.  Nay,  the  very  process  by 
which  man  discovers  his  true  relation  to  the  Divine, 
and  unfolds  that  relation  in  his  own  life,  must  inevi- 


ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS.  77 

tably  give  proof  of  its  vitality  in  outer  signs  or  forms. 
And  just  so  far  as  the  life  of  the  individual  is  bound 
up  in  the  life  of  the  community,  by  just  so  far  must 
the  forms  expressive  of  the  individual  life  be  the 
forms  expressive  of  the  communal  life. 

But  these  outer  forms  are  thus  nothing  else  than 
the  modes  by  which  the  inner  expresses  or  manifests 
itself.  So  that  in  the  progressive  unfolding  of  re- 
ligion, in  the  process  of  the  spiritual  evolution  of 
man,  there  cannot  fail  to  be  a  progressive  modifica- 
tion of  the  outer  forms  in  which  this  inner,  vital 
evolution  is  made  manifest.  Forms  are,  as  it  were, 
something  non-essential,  in  which,  nevertheless,  the 
inner,  essential  energy  of  the  spirit  gives  proof  of  its 
truth  and  vitalit3^  They  are  the  indispensable  modes, 
and  yet  the  temporal,  transitory  modes,  of  what  is 
true  and  eternal. 

This  spiritual  evolution  of  man  is,  besides,  the  ren- 
dering explicit  or  real  in  man  what  was  at  first  only 
implicit  or  possible  for  man.  It  is  a  work,  too, 
which,  with  whatever  of  divine  aids,  man  must  ever 
perform  for  himself.  And  these  divine  aids  are 
available  to  man  precisely  in  the  degree  in  which 
man  is  himself  able  to  seize  upon  and  independently 
make  use  of  them.  Hence,  the  beginnings  of  re- 
ligion, like  the  beginnings  of  all  things  in  the  history 
of  man,  could  not  be  other  than  vague  and  feeble. 
It  is,  then,  by  no  means  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 


78  ORIENTAIv   RELIGIONS. 

working  out  of  his  own  salvation  by  man  should 
necessarily  involve  a  vast  degree  of  fear  and  tremb- 
ling on  his  part ;  and  this,  especially,  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  the  process.  For  in  those  stages  man  can 
only  vaguely  surmise  the  true  nature  of  the  Divine, 
and  can  onl}^  grope  about  in  the  darkness  for  the 
method  by  which  he  can  attain  to  a  relation  of  har- 
mony with  the  Divine. 

It  is  this  initial  stage  that  is  especially  illustrated 
by  the  religions  of  the  Orient — a  fact  proven  beyond 
controversy  by  abundant  documentary  evidence  now 
easily  accessible.  In  what  follows,  an  attempt  is 
made  to  indicate  the  essential  elements  and  funda- 
mental phases  of  the  development  of  the  initial  stage 
of  religion. 

In  Oriental  religions,  everything  is  vague  and  im- 
plicit. No  clear  distinction  is  developed  in  them  be- 
tween the  inner  and  the  outer.  The  spiritual  is  still 
inextricably  involved  in  the  natural.  Consciousness 
is  not  yet  definitely  unfolded  into  conscience. 

It  has  just  been  seen  that  the  outer  expression  must 
of  necessity  correspond  to  the  inner  spirit.  Hence, 
vague  conceptions  can  never  find  utterance  in  any- 
thing else  than  in  forms  correspondingly  vague.  But 
such  vague  forms  rather  hint  at  than  express  the 
spirit  that  blindly  struggles  up  into  them.  They  are, 
then,   at   best   only    signs,  premonitions,    symbols   of 


ORIENTAI,   RELIGIONS.  79 

what  the  yearning   spirit  vaguely  feels,  and  yet  is 
wholly  unable  tb  comprehend  or  clearly  think. 

This  initial  phase  of  the  spiritual  evolution  of  man 
has  been  called  the  "childhood  of  religion."  It  is, 
however,  no  less  truly  the  religion  of  childhood. 
Nothing  is  clearly  thought  out  by  the  child,  the 
typical  "primitive  man."  On  the  contrary,  every- 
thing is  to  him  wholly  miraculous  ;  that  is,  quite  in- 
comprehensible, and  hence  a  perpetual  occasion  of 
wonder. 

At  first,  doubtless,  no  clear  distinction  is  made  be- 
tween the  symbol  and  the  thing  or  idea  symbolized. 
On  the  contrary,  the  vague  sense  of  a  superhuman 
Power  finds  its  expression  in  all  the  objects  of  the 
outer  world.  But  most  of  all  does  this  vague  sense 
of  the  superhuman  find  its  appropriate  embodiment 
in  just  those  phases 'of  nature  that  are  themselves 
most  vague  and  intangible. 

It  is  by  no  means  strange,  therefore,  that  primitive 
religions  seem  invariably  to  find  their  basis  in  the 
primal  distinction  which  constitutes  the  condition  of 
vision  — the  sense  through  which  the  individual  re- 
ceives so  large  a  proportion  of  his  impressions  of  the 
outer  world.  That  distinction  is  the  one  between 
light  and  darkness.  These  opposite  conditions  of 
his  life  come  and  go,  primitive  man  knows  not  how. 
He  has,  of  course,  not  the  slightest  suspicion  that 
light  as  illumination  and  darkness  as  obscurity  are 


80  ORIENTAL   REI.IGIONS. 

but  states  of  his  own  mind.  Whence  he  can  but  re- 
gard them  as  real  existences,  quite  external  to  him- 
self, and  having  power  immeasurably  superior  to  his 
own.  The  light  comes,  and  brings  him  gladness  ; 
the  darkness  comes,  and  fills  him  with  terror.  He 
greets  the  coming  of  light  with  praise  and  thanks- 
giving. He  shrinks  from  the  darkness  as  from  a 
gigantic  power  that  had  slain  the  kindly  divinities, 
and  would  bring  nothing  but  evil  to  man. 

It  is  of  no  little  significance,  too,  that  the  word 
"divine,"  found  in  so  many  modern  languages,  is 
traceable  to  the  old  Aryan  root,  deva^  which  meant 
"bright."  The  devas,  the  gods,  were  the  "bright 
ones. ' '  And  the  most  exalted  worship  of  the  men  of 
the  early  world  was  offered  to  the  sun,  to  the  dawn, 
to  the  diffused,  all  pervading  light  of  the  sk}^  So, 
also,  the  lightning,  and  all  forms  of  fire,  were  revered 
as  "divine."  Even  the  sky  itself,  visible  by  means 
of  light,  high  above  all,  one  and  serene,  was  from 
the  remotest  times  an  object  of  worship. 

At  the  same  time,  it  is  evident  that  all  this  is  ex- 
tremely vague  and  general.  Or,  in  more  technical 
phrase,  thought  itself,  in  its  very  nature,  possesses 
the  characteristic  of  universality.  Hence,  the  simplest 
act  of  worship,  as  itself  expressive  of  a  thought,  must 
have  in  it  something  universal.  And  yet,  at  this 
initial  stage  of  worship,  the  object  of  reverence  is  ap- 
prehended only  superficially  and  in  ver}-  inadequate 


ORIENTAL    RELIGIONS.  81 

fashion.  As  thus  seized,  the  universal  nature  of  the 
object  of  worship  is  still  abstract.  The  Truth,  doubt- 
less, is  always  infinitely  concrete  and  real.  But 
man,  unable  to  comprehend  the  Truth  in  all  its  ful- 
ness, seizes  from  time  to  time  upon  some  one  simple, 
universal  phase  thereof  and  brings  that  into  special 
prominence.  Thus  there  is  formed  an  abstract  or  in- 
adequate view  of  the  Truth. 

Nevertheless,  continued  exercise  of  thought  must 
have  the  effect  of  deepening  and  enriching  man's 
consciousness  of  the  Truth.  And,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  find  that  man  began  at  a  very  early  period 
to  notice  analogies  between  the  outer  light  of  the  sun 
and  the  inner  light  of  consciousness.  Light  came 
from  without,  but  it  also  sprang  up  within.  Thus 
already  there  was  discovered  a  point  of  identity  be- 
tween the  human  and  the  "divine."  The  result  was 
inevitable  and  far-reaching.  The  "divine"  beings, 
the  sources  of  light  outside  of  man,  the  sun,  the 
dawn,  came  at  length  to  be  looked  upon  as  possessing 
the  characteristics  of  consciousness  and  will.  Hence, 
worship  could  not  but  become  more  definite  ;  and 
prayer,  the  offering  of  the  inner  thought,  must  con- 
stitute an  ever-increasing  factor,  and  tend  more  and 
more  to  displace  the  outer  factor  of  physical  sacri- 
fices. 

This  process  involves  another  element  also.  It  is 
this:     Just  as  the  rising  sun  brought  gladness  and  re- 


82  ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS. 

lief  from  the  terrors  of  the  night,  so  the  reappearance 
of  the  father  of  the  family  after  his  wanderings  in 
pursuit  of  game  or  an  enemy  could  not  but  bring  a 
sense  of  illumination,  and  drive  away  the  vague  ter- 
rors and  sense  of  defencelessness  experienced  during 
his  absence.  Whence,  just  as  the  attributes  of  hu- 
manity must  inevitably  be  sooner  or  later  assigned  to 
the  sources  of  outer  light,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
characteristics  belonging  to  these  sources  of  light 
cannot  fail  to  be  assigned,  sooner  or  later,  to  the 
strong  man  whose  presence  brings  security  and 
whose  absence  causes  gloom  and  dismay.  Nor  can 
the  final  departure  of  the  strong  man  in  death  be 
thought  of  as  anything  more  than  a  departure.  How- 
ever vague  the  form  of  the  belief,  the  fact  of  the  be- 
lief remains  that  in  some  way  the  strong  man  still 
lives  and  dwells,  though  now  invisibly,  in  the  midst 
of  his  people.  And,  just  because  of  the  indistinct- 
ness of  view  regarding  the  new  mode  of  existence  of 
the  now  invisible  strong  man,  the  imagination  easily 
and  inevitably  represents  him  as  having  grown  im- 
measurabl}^  in  power  for  good  or  for  evil.  He  is 
hence  to  be  propitiated,  worshipped.  The  dead  man 
becomes  a  living  God. 

But  this  perpetual  intermingling  of  human  attrib- 
utes, on  the  one  hand,  with  the  attributes  of  physical 
force,  on  the  other,  has  also  the  effect  of  separating 
certain  specially  striking  phases  of  force  from  their 


ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS.  83 

ordinary  modes  of  manifestation,  and  of  personifying 
them  as  gods  in  human  form.  Thus,  while  the  sun 
was  at  first  vaguely  worshipped  as  a  "divine"  or  lumi- 
nous, joy-giving  being,  the  light  itself  came  at  last 
to  be  spiritualized  in  human  conception  ;  and  this 
spiritualized  light,  conceived  of  as  possessing  a  hu- 
man form,  comes  at  length  to  be  worshipped  as  a  god 
of  enlightenment  rather  than  as  a  god  of  mere  physi- 
cal illumination  The  most  striking  example  of  this 
is  that  of  the  old  Aryan  conception  of  the  sun  as  the 
bringer  of  day  gradually  becoming  transfigured  into 
the  conception  of  the  god  of  intellectual  clearness  and 
moral  elevation.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  Apollo 
comes  at  last  to  be  worshipped  among  the  Greeks. 
And  this  worship  formed  the  strongest  element  in 
all  that  was  noblest  in  Greek  life  and  character. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  first  vague 
form  of  this  transformation  of  the  natural  into  the 
spiritual  in  the  estimation  of  men  is  found  in  the 
wonder  excited  by  the  fact  of  life  in  general.  Man 
can  only  interpret  the  facts  of  the  world  about  him 
by  referring  those  facts  to  his  own  consciousness,  to 
his  own  personal  experience.  As  his  own  move- 
ments are  inseparable  from  his  own  life,  so  primitive 
man  could  not  do  otherwise  than  conclude  spon- 
taneously that  whatever  moves  also  possesses  life. 
Nay,  in  his  imperfect,  uncritical  view  of  himself  and 
his  limited  world,  he  can  neither  suspect  that  move- 


84  ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS. 

ment  is  separate  or  separable  from  life  in  any  respect  ; 
nor  can  he  suspect  that  life  is  an3^where  different  in 
kind  from  his  own.  If  the  sun,  or  the  wind,  or  a 
cloud,  or  a  river  moves,  it  must  do  so  because  it 
chooses  to  move.  And  still  more  must  a  tree,  or  a 
bird,  or  a  serpent  seem  not  onlj'  a  living  being,  but 
also  a  conscious,  thinking  being,  possessed  of  a  will. 
Is  not  the  tree  a  creator  of  fruit  ?  Does  not  the  bird 
by  its  power  of  flight  transfer  itself  at  will  to  and 
from  the  invisible  world  ?  Has  not  the  serpent 
power  over  life  and  death,  as  well  as  miraculous  gift 
of  movement  ? 

Such,  doubtless,  is  the  clew  to  the  otherwise  strange 
fact  that  primitive  man  worshipped  all  objects  of  na- 
tvre  indiscriminately,  as  embodying  the  mysterious, 
divine  principle  of  motion.  That  principle  he  rightly 
interpreted  as  necessarily  implying  life  and  conscious- 
ness, though  he  failed  to  comprehend  it  in  its  truth 
as  an  evidence  of  the  one  living,  conscious  Energy 
that  constitutes  the  unifying  principle  of  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole.  Here,  too,  is  found  the  clew  to 
the  way  in  which  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  grew 
into  form.  If  life  differs  from  life,  not  in  kind,  but 
only  in  form  and  degree  ;  and  if  the  life  manifested 
in  a  given  form  is  still  permanent  as  life,  while  the 
form  in  which  it  is  manifest  is  evanescent — then  a 
given  unit  of  life  maj^  take  on  an  indefinite  series  of 
forms    lunning    through    all    the    grades   which    are 


ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS.  85 

in  any  way  adaptable  to  life.  Hence,  a  living  unit 
that  is  now  a  man  may,  through  former  periods,  have 
been  an  eagle,  an  antelope,  a  tiger,  a  fish,  a  serpent, 
a  worm.  Nor  is  there  any  hindrance  to  his  becoming 
hereafter  a  god.  The  worm  and  the  god  are  but  op- 
posite extremes  in  the  at  once  upward-rising  and 
downward-sinking  scale  of  life. 

This  is  the  special  characteristic  of  Oriental  re- 
ligions. Brahmanism  rises  to  the  figurative  repre- 
sentation of  a  unifying  principle  of  all  things.  Brahm 
is  all.  Hence,  all  is  identified  with  Brahm.  This  is 
especially  emphasized  in  the  conception  of  the  iden- 
tification of  man  with  Brahm  through  the  Brahman, 
the  deified  man.  But  it  also  appears  in  germ  in  all 
primitive  faiths  in  the  worship  paid  to  ancestors. 

In  Buddhism,  also,  transmigration  is  an  essential 
thread.  In  this  faith,  which  sets  out  with  ignoring 
the  idea  of  the  existence  of  a  God  or  gods  in  so  far  as 
worship  is  concerned,  the  culmination  is  reached  in 
man  himself  becoming  a  god.  That  is,  man  reaches 
absolute  perfection  in  an  abstract  universal  existence 
by  sinking  into  Nirva7ia — the  indescribable  state. 
To  the  western  mind,  indeed,  this  means  non- 
existence ;  since  whatever  is  real  must  manifest  itself 
to  the  reason  as  possessing  qualitative  and  quanti- 
tative differences  or  distinctions  within  itself.  And 
the  richer  the  reality,  the  more  positive  and  multi- 
form those  distinctions  must  be.     But  the  Real  thus 


86  ORIENTAL    RELIGIONS. 

manifested  is  precisely  what  appeals  and  must  ever 
appeal  directly  to  reason,  and  is  hence  compre- 
hensible and  utterable.  The  absolutely  unutterable 
is  the  absolutely  non-existent. 

The  Oriental  religions,  then,  present  a  confused 
representation,  in  which  everything  is  divine,  in 
which  all  is  God  ;  that  is,  the  fundamental  charac- 
teristic is  pantheism. 

But,  as  man  cannot  be  content  with  mere  passive 
awe  and  vague  wonder  in  presence  of  physical  light, 
so  neither  can  he  rest  in  the  mere  impression  that 
there  is  something  divine  in  the  principle  of  life. 
His  own  spontaneous  nature  must  impress  itself  upon 
the  objects  of  his  worship.  His  vague  consciousness 
becomes  enriched  and  invigorated  and  defined  through 
centuries  of  spontaneous  activity.  And  while,  in  the 
first  vague  universality  of  his  consciousness,  man 
was  content  passively  to  contemplate  the  divine  in 
the  objects  of  the  surrounding  world,  he  must,  with 
an  unfolding  and  deepening  consciousness,  be  led  at 
length  to  a  more  or  less  definite  struggle  to  construct 
for  himself  his  own  expression  of  the  universal  and 
divine  truth  which  he  deeply  felt  and  dimly  saw  in 
the  world. 

Thus  arose  monumental  symbolism.  It  is,  above 
all,  in  Egypt  that  this  phase  of  the  Oriental  spirit  is 
found  in  its  culmination.  It  has  often  been  said  that 
the  Pyramids  are  a  proof  of  the  overwhelming  tyranny 


ORIENTAL    REIvIGIONS.  87 

of  the  Egyptian  kings,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
abject  submission  of  the  Egyptian  people,  on  the 
other.  A  truer  view,  however,  must  bring  to  light 
the  fact  that  the  faith  in  immortality  symbolized  in 
those  huge  monuments  was  the  faith  of  the  peoole 
no  less  than  of  the  king  ;  and  the  nation  doubtless 
toiled  willingly  to  give  monumental  utterance  to  a 
sentiment  pervading  the  inmost  life  ^f  the  whole 
people.  Doubtless  their  toiling  was  directly  an  ex- 
pression of  simple  obedience.  But  the  king  was  the 
more  v/illingly,  the  more  spontaneously  obeyed  for 
the  very  reason  that  he  commanded  precisely  that 
work  the  accomplishment  of  which  was  also  im- 
plicitly demanded  by  the  deepest  convictions  of  the 
whole  nation. 

But  the  final,  culminating  symbol  to  which  the 
Oriental  consciousness  gave  rise,  in  its  struggle  at 
once  to  state  and  to  answer  its  questionings  concern- 
ing  the  nature  of  the  Divine,  and  the  relation  of 
man  to  the  Divine,  was  the  Sphinx.  One  of  the 
earliest  of  Egyptian  symbols,  it  is  incessantly  re- 
peated throughout  the  whole  life  of  the  Egyptian 
people.  Even  the  huge  Sphinx  of  Gizeh,  constructed 
before  the  beginning  of  the  Memphite  dynasty,  was 
at  the  outset  dedicated  explicitly  to  a  divinity,  and 
thus  from  the  first  possessed  a  deeply  religious  sig- 
nificance. It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  it  was  dedi- 
cated to  the  rising  sun,  which  to  the  Egyptians  was 


88  ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS. 

ever  a  new-born  God.  This  colossal  image  thus  pre- 
sents in  itself  the  symbol  of  light,  and  hence  joins  on 
to  the  primitive  phase  of  the  worship  of  the  inorganic 
in  its  sublimest  form  of  illumination,  as  a  life-giving 
divinity.  But  it  was  hewn  out  of  a  mass  of  live  rock 
rising  abruptly  out  of  the  plain.  Hence  in  this  rade 
but  marvelous  monument  there  is  represented  the 
rising  of  the  inorganic,  through  the  organic  as  mere 
animal,  to  man  as  the  animal  in  whom  the  light  of 
the  spirit  was  at  last  to  shine  forth  in  its  complete- 
ness as  matured,  self-conscious  Reason. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  only  in  Greece,  the  dawnland  of 
spiritual  enlightenment,  that  this  dumb  symbol  of 
the  Orientdives  and  speaks.  There  for  the  first  time 
does  it  audibly  utter  its  question.  And  yet  no  sooner 
does  it  find  answer  to  its  central  question  than  it 
sinks  back  into  dumbness  and  even  into  death.  For 
man,  the  thinker,  proves  to  be  the  solution  of  all 
riddles — man,  the  ever  new-born  son  of  God,  whose 
undying  nature  assures  him  of  an  eternity  in  which 
to  rise  through  all  the  degrees  of  realization  of  the  di- 
vine nature  within  him.  Hence,  man  is  himself  the 
explicit  utterayice  of  the  ultimate  problem  of  the 
world.  He  is  also  impli^tly  the  final  solution  of  all 
riddles,  and  thus  the  final  dissolution  of  all  symbols. 

In  the  Orient,  this  culmination  is  vaguely  yearned 
for  ;  in  Greece,  clearly  prophesied  ;  in  the  modern 
and  Christian  world,  realized.     And  yet  Christianity 


ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS.  89 

began  in  the  Orient,  and  is  now  at  length  shining 
back  with  its  matured  Light  of  Life  into  the  Orient, 
giving  proof  ever  clearer  that  Religion  is  in  truth 
neither  Oriental  nor  Occidental,  nor  external  at  all  ; 
but,  rather,  that  it  is  something  altogether  internal 
and  spiritual  ;  that,  as  indicated  at  the  outset  of  this 
sketch,  it  is  the  one  absolutely  changeless  method, 
which  every  finite  spirit  must  adopt  and  unfold  into 
genuine  reality  for  itself  as  the  vital  process  of  spir- 
itual evolution,  if  it  would  bring  itself  into  genuine 
harmony  and  living  unity  with  the  divine  Father 
of  all. 


HI. 

BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 


I. 

The  farther  back  we  penetrate  toward  the  begin- 
nings of  history  the  more  strongly  marked  become 
the  proofs  that  the  narrators  of  events  in  those  early 
times  had  little  thought  of  representing  events  pre- 
cisely as  they  occurred.  Properly  speaking  there 
was  no  history,  but  only  prophecy.  And  the  prophet, 
far  from  entertaining  the  thought  of  making  for 
future  generations  a  faithful  record  of  what  was 
passing  or  had  already  passed,  was  only  intent  upon 
influencing  as  deeply  as  possible  the  people  of  his 
own  time. 

Hence  he  seized  events  in  their  main  outlines  and 
used  them  with  perfect  freedom  as  plastic  materials 
out  of  which  to  construct  a  representation  that  should 
possess  a  certain  artistic  completeness,  and  thus  prove 
specially  impressive  in  the  enforcement  of  some  gen- 
eral doctrine  which  it  seemed  desirable  the  people 
should  adopt.  This  was  true  in  greater  or  less  de- 
gree in  all  the  countries  of  the  ancient  world  ;  in 
China,  in  India,  in  Greece,  in  Judaea. 

Nor  is  this  an  evidence  of  cunning  and  knavery  on 
the  part  of  the  prophetic  narrators.     On  the  contrary, 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  91 

it  but  proves  that  man  had  not  yet  awakened  to  a 
true  sense  of  historic  values.  Thus  the  earliest  "his- 
tory" took  the  form  of  the  myths  in  which  the  par- 
ticular event  is  enlarged  into  a  movement  of  uni- 
versal significance  ;  while  chronology  drops  out  of 
sight  altogether — or  rather  it  wholly  fails  to  appear — 
save  in  the  form  of  sacred  symbolic  numbers. 

This  is  the  simple  explanation — now  well-nigh 
commonplace — of  the  fact  that  the  history  of  early 
civilizations  can  be  only  partially  made  out  through 
the  most  laborious  and  careful  investigation  of  the 
fragmentary  remains  of  the  monuments  and  litera- 
tures which  the  peoples  of  the  early  world  busied 
themselves  in  constructing. 

Thus,  by  a  new  and  wholly  admirable  development 
of  analytical  skill,  entire  cycles  of  richly  unfolded 
literatures,  which  on  first  view  are  without  date  or 
any  external  mark  of  chronological  order,  have,  by 
comparison  of  turns  of  expression  and  of  phases  of 
belief  and  thought  developed  in  them,  been  brought 
into  something  approaching  historical  arrangement, 
from  which  the  historical  development  of  the  peoples 
themselves  may  now  be  at  least  approximately  traced. 

This  critical,  comparative  method,  characteristic 
exclusively  of  the  modern  and  Western  mind,  has 
been  applied  with  special  zeal  and  success  within  re- 
cent years  in  the  investigation  of  Oriental  literatures 
and  religions.     And,  first  of  all,  India  has  furnished 


92  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

by  far  the  most  extensive  as  well  as  the  most  inviting 
of  the  hitherto  unexplored  fields. 

At  the  same  time  the  critical  spirit  has  fearlessly 
cl  imed  the  right  to  appl}^  precisely  the  same  methods 
and  the  same  tests  that  have  here  availed  so  much, 
to  the  literature  and  religion  not  only  of  the  ancient 
Hebrews,  but  also  of  the  Christians. 

It  has  thus  happened  that  wholly  unrestrained 
comparisons  have  been  instituted  between  these  re- 
ligions, so  revered  in  the  West,  and  the  leading  faiths 
of  the  "heathen"  East  Many,  indeed,  have  been 
the  parallels  already  drawn  between  Buddhism  and 
Christianity  ;  and  not  seldom  the  conclusion  arrived 
at  has  been  that  the  differences  between  these  widely 
desseminated  faiths  are  differences  of  form  rather 
than  of  substance. 

Not  unfrequently,  indeed,  those  who  have  most 
zealously  urged  the  importance  of  applying  the  com- 
parative method  to  the  study  of  religions,  and  who 
have  most  confidently  applied  that  method  in  such 
studies,  prove  to  have  quite  forgotten  a  caution  of 
Plato  applicable  to  comparative  studies  generally. 
One  ought,  he  said,  to  be  extremely  careful  in  deal- 
ing with  similarities,  for  they  are  ''mosf  slippe^-y 
things.''''  It  is,  in  fact,  altogether  easy  to  find  sim- 
ilarities between  any  two  objects  of  attention  above  or 
below  the  sun,  provided  one  does  not  specially  con- 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  93 

ceni  himself  regarding  the  depth  or  shallowness  of 
import  which  the  comparison  unfolds. 

It  is  certainly  true — or  rather  a  truism — that  the 
Buddhist  fa  th  failed  to  find  permanent  acceptance 
among  the  people  of  the  same  race  as  its  founder,  but 
spread  irresistibly  among  an  alien  race,  precisely  as 
was  the  case  with  Christianity.  And  yet  not  "pre- 
cisely" either  ;  since  Buddhism  became,  and  for 
centuries  remained,  the  dominant  faith  in  a  large 
portion  of  India,  while  Christianity  was  from  the 
first  rejected  by  the  Jews,  not  to  mention  the  extreme 
differences  of  national  conditions  at  the  time  of  the 
origination  of  the  two  faiths  respectively.  Of  course, 
also,  a  similarity  so  striking  ought  not  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  the  further  mention  of  the  otherwise  fairly 
noteworthy  differences  manites  between  the  Chinese, 
Tatars,  Siamese,  etc.,  among  whom  Buddhism  has 
been  more  or  less  enthusiastically  received,  and  the 
peoples  of  Europe  and  America,  by  whom  Christiani- 
ty has  been  accepted. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  purpose  of  the  present  paper 
to  pursue  this  line  of  comparison,  whatever  possibili- 
ties of  entertainment  or  even  amusement  it  might  be 
found  to  possess.  We  shall  rather  attempt  to  trace 
the  chief  conditions  of  the  historical  development  of 
the  two  faiths  respectively,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
present  the  fundamental  conceptions  by  which  each 
is  characterized. 


94  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

It  must  also  be  explicitly  recognized  at  the  outset 
that  every  genuine  investigation  is  an  appeal  to 
Reason.  Nothing  can  be  admitted,  therefore,  that 
is  not  clear  to  the  Reason — that  does  not,  in  fact, 
compel  the  assent  of  Reason.  On  the  other  hand, 
appeal  to  "miracle" — to  something  not  compre- 
hended— in  proof  of  the  divine  origin  of  a  faith,  and 
you  at  once  set  aside  Reason,  which  alone  is  capable 
of  recognizing  and  verifying  the  divine  elements 
which  a  faith  may  possess.  All  faiths  are,  in  their 
origin,  based  on  "miracles."  Reason  alone  can  dis- 
criminate between  a  true  and  a  false  miracle,  between 
a  divine  and  an  undivine  revelation. 

If  Christianity,  then,  is  superior  to  Buddhism,  it 
must  give  to  the  Reason  convincing  proof  of  its 
superiority.  Reason  seeks,  and  from  its  very  nature 
must  ever  seek  for  what  is  highest  and  ultimate  ;  that 
is,  for  the  concrete  Totality  of  Truth.  With  nothing 
less  than  this  can  it  ever  be  satisfied  ;  and  to  this  it 
can  only  attain  through  an  independent  tracing  out  of 
the  necessary  and  therefore  rational  order  of  relations 
in  the  world  as  a  whole. 

The  final  faith  of  the  world,  then,  can  be  no  other 
than  that  which  presents  to  the  Reason  the  clew  at 
once  to  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  world  on  the 
one  hand  and  to  the  essential  nature  and  final  destiny 
of  man  on  the  other. 

Does  Buddhism  present    this  clew  ?     Does    Chris- 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  95 

tianity  present  it  ?  Which  of  these  religions  has  ad- 
vanced farthest  toward  the  utterance  of  the  final — 
which  is  also  necessarily  the  primal — truth?  This  is 
the  central  question,  to  the  investigation  of  which  we 
have  now  to  proceed. 

II. 

What  were  the  chief  conditions  of  the  historical 
development  of  Buddhism  ?  To  this  it  is  to  be  an- 
swered that  Buddhism,  taking  its  rise  among  the 
Hindus,  was  necessarily  conditioned  by  the  peculiar 
characteristics  of  that  people.  And  what  those  char- 
acteristics were,  thanks  to  the  persistent  energy  and 
keen,  critical  in3ight  of  modern  scholars,  can  now  be 
briefly  and  confidently  stated. 

The  Hindus  are  now  well  known  to.  have  been 
characterized  from  the  earliest  times  by  an  activity 
and  brilliancy  of  imagination  even  beyond  that  of  any 
other  primitive  people.  At  the  same  time,  that  im- 
aginative power,  under  the  influence  of  the  over- 
whelming nature-forces  in  the  midst  of  which  the  de- 
velopment of  the  people  took  place,  gradually  un- 
folded into  an  uncontrolled  fancy  which  never  ceased 
to  revel  in  the  creation  of  grotesque,  monstrous 
imagery.  Reflection,  careful  testing,  searching  criti- 
cism, found  no  place  ,  and  the  Hindu  mind  was  at 
length  overwhelmed  with  uncontrollable  terror  and 
despair  in  presence  of  monstrous  beings  which  it  had 


96  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

itself  unconsciously  called  into  phantasmal  existence. 

Thus  grew  up  among  the  Hindus  that  fantastic 
theory  of  the  world  and  of  life  at  which  the  Western 
mind  can  never  cease  to  wonder.  At  the  same  time 
the  development  of  this  theory  is  essentially  con- 
nected with  the  attainment  to  supremacy  on  the  part 
of  the  Brahman  caste.  The  members  of  this  caste 
alone,  so  they  came  at  length  to  claim,  were  in  pos- 
session of  the  key  to  the  happiness  of  mankind, 
whether  in  this  life  or  in  the  life  to  come.  And  this 
claim  was  for  a  long  period  almost  universally  ad- 
mitted. Thus  the  Brahmans  were  enabled  to  develop 
a  more  and  more  elaborate  ceremonial,  and  to  enforce 
it  with  ever  increasing  complexity  of  requirements 
upon  the  hopelessly  enthralled  people. 

The  climax  was  fairly  reached  when,  with  a  greatly 
overcrowded  population,  the  caste  system  came  to  be 
firmly  fixed  and  unresistingly  accepted  by  the  great 
mass  of  the  population  as  the  true  system  of  relations 
between  man  and  man.  With  the  endless  ceremonial 
and  crushing  terrorism  of  the  Brahmanic  faith,  rein- 
forced by  the  narrow,  impassable  limitations  of  the 
caste  system,  it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  for 
a  vast  majority  of  the  people  life  should  be  full  of 
wretchedness  and  despair.  And  how  much  more  as 
the  conviction  became  everywhere  settled  that  life 
ended  only  to  begin  anew,  and  perhaps  in  still  more 
wretched  guise  !     Even  the  good  man,  who  through 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  97 

long  penance  and  multiplied  lives  of  devotion  came 
at  length  to  be  admitted  to  the  company  of  the  gods, 
could  not  prevent  his  hard-won  virtues  from  there 
crumbling  away  until,  himself  grown  earthy  and 
heavy  again,  he  must  needs  descend  once  more  to  the 
lower  sphere,  albeit  his  return  took  place  in  the  form 
of  a  falling  star  !' 

From  very  early  times,  indeed,  the  conception  of 
transmigration  became  the  fundamental  tenet  of  the 
Hindu  creed.  And  thus  the  all-absorbing  question 
came  to  be  :  How  can  this  seemingly  ceaseless  round 
of  birth  and  painful  life  and  mocking  death  be 
brought  to  an  end  ?  By  penance  and  by  scrupu- 
lously minute  observance  of  the  Vedic  ceremonial, 
answered  the  Brahman.  And  millions  of  Hindus 
helplessly,  if  not  hopelessly,  followed  the  injunction. 

The  steps  of  spiritual  development  on  the  part  of 
this  people  are,  then  :  first,  a  specially  lively  imagi- 
nation which,  through  its  abnormal  development, 
led  at  length  to  belief  in  a  wholly  artificial  relation 
between  man  and  the  Divine  Principle  ;  secondly,  a 
growing  dread  of  that  Principle,  a  dread  having  its 
ground  in  endless  mystification  concerning  the  Prin- 
ciple ;  and,  thirdly,  a  consequent  increasingly-abject 
submission  to  the  dictates  of  a  class,  the  members  of 
which    claimed   to  have  exclusive  knowledge    upon 


'This  quaint   conception    also   makes  its  appearance,  in 
modified  form,  at  the  close  of  Plato's  Republic, 


98  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

these  high  themes  along  with  power  to  determine  the 
fate  of  the  individual  for  good  or  ill. 

Manifestly  the  tendency  was  ever  toward  a  less  and 
less  sufferable  condition  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  so  far  as  the  Hindu  mind  developed 
anything  that  can  be  dignified  with  the  name  philoso- 
phy, that  philosophy  should  be  distinctly  tinged  with 
this  depressing  character  of  the  whole  intellectual 
dev^elopment  of  India.  Hindu  faith  being  pessimistic, 
Hindu  philosophy  is  pessimistic  as  a  matter  of  course. 
For  the  philosophy  of  a  people  is  but  the  expression, 
in  terms  appealing  to  the  reflective  consciousness  or 
reason,  of  what  is  already  present,  under  forms  ap- 
pealing to  the  imagination,  in  its  faith.  But  imagi- 
nation, as  we  have  already  seen,  is  the  predominant 
characteristic  of  Hindu  thought.  Hence  the  so-called 
Hindu  philosophy  never  rises  above  imagination.  Its 
best  thoughts  are  still  involved  in  imagery. 

Nature,  says  their  chief  system,  is  fundamentally 
active.  It  therefore  involves  and  is  involved  in 
change,  and  change  is  inseparable  from  pain.  The 
soul,  on  the  contrary,  is  changeless,  altogether  pas- 
sive, and  is  connected  with  nature  only  by  illusion. 
It  is  only  through  this  illusion  that  the  soul  comes 
to  be  regarded  as  acting.  Even  "intellect"  is  a 
phase,  not  of  the  soul,  but  rather  of  nature  or  matter. 

Now  because  the  soul  is  thought  to  be  inactive, 
and   therefore  not  involved  in  change,   which  must 


-     BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  99 

ever  infallibly  bring  pain,  precisely  for  this  reason  is 
the  soul  assumed  to  be  superior  to  nature.  And  still 
further  ;  even  this  seeming  connection  of  the  soul 
with  matter  must  be  broken  off  in  order  to  put  an  end 
to  its  seeming  activity,  and  thus  to  bring  about  its 
deliverance  from  illusion  and  the  fateful  round  of 
transmigration  involved  in  this  illusory  existence. 

But  only  by  knowledge  can  illusion  be  done  away 
with  ;  and,  as  we  would  expect,  it  is  "by  the  study 
of  principles"  as  unfolded  in  the  Sankhya  system, 
and  thus  alone,  that  true  knowledge — and  with  it 
true  deliverance — is  said  to  be  attainable. 

Once  in  possession  of  this  highest  knowledge,  how- 
ever, says  the  author  of  the  system,  the  truth  for  the 
individual  is  expressed  in  the  formula  :  "Neither  I 
am,  nor  is  aught  mine,  nor  do  I  exist ,"  or,  as  it  has 
been  otherwise  rendered,  "I  am  not,  nothing  is  mine, 
and  there  is  no  ego"  or  thinking  principle  !^ 

Manifestly,  then,  the  author  of  the  system,  so  soon 
as  he  attempted  to  think  of  the  soul  as  apart  from 
matter-  was  able  to  think  of  it  only  in  this  purely 


^Sankhya  Karika^  Verse  64.  Colebrook  translates  :  "So 
through  study  of  principles,  the  conclusive,  incontrovertible, 
one  only  knowledge  is  attained,  that  neither  I  am,  nor  is 
aught  mine,  nor  do  I  exist."  The  second  rendering  is  that 
of  John  Davies.  See  his  Hindu  Philosophy,  (p.  46).  Lon- 
don, Truebner  &  Co.,  1881. 

"And  Kapila  believed  that  the  soul  could  only  attain  per- 
fection through  becoming  "wholly  separate  from  matter," 
and  in  this  state  the  soul  exists  "without  consciousness  or 
sense  of  personality." 


100  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

uegative  fashion, 'that  is,  to  imagine  it  as  existing 
apart  from  all  imaginable  qualities  or  characteristics  ! 
It  is  nothing  else  than  a  blank  denial  of  conscious- 
ness or  personality  side  by  side  with  the  affirmation 
of  the  continued  existence  of  the  soul.  The  only  es- 
cape from  pain  is  through  the  loss  of  consciousness, 
and  pain  is  regarded  as  unmixed  evil.  Hence  the 
primal  and  only  real  problem  of  Hindu  philosophy 
is  :  "How  to  obtain  release  from  the  three-fold  kinds 
of  pain  ?" 

Thus  the  only  good  toward  which  this  strange 
system  points  is  the  empty  abstraction  of  unconscious 
existence — an  impersoyial  personality. 

Now  the  Sankhya  philosophy  is  a  remarkable  for- 
mulation of  the  implicit  belief  in  and  deep  yearning 
for  deliverance  from  the  interminable  round  of  the 
transmigration  of  the  soul.  And  it  is  of  special  in- 
terest in  the  present  connection,  not  merely  from  this 
fact,  but  also,  and  mainly,  because,  according  to 
competent  scholars,  its  development  took  place  in  the 
period  just  preceding  that  of  the  rise  of  Buddhism  in 
India.  Or  it  might  be  inferred  from  internal  evi- 
dence, which  is  well-nigh  the  only  evidence  we  pos- 
sess, that  the  Sankhya  philosophy  and  Buddhism 
both  developed  during  the  same  period  as  outgrowths 
of  the  same  tendencies,  and  were  but  different  efforts 
put  forth  side  by  side  from  different  standpoints  with 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  101 

a  view  to  meeting  the  most  spiritual  needs  of  the 
time. 

Certain  it  is,  at  least,  that  at  the  foundation  of  both 
lies  the  same  fundamental  conception  of  the  soul 
entang^led  in  the  meshes  of  interminable  transmi- 
gration ;  of  life,  with  its  constant  recurrences  of  birth 
and  death,  as  hopelessly-  full  of  misery  ;  while  the 
one  only  way  of  escape  from  pain  is  assumed  to  be 
necessarily  that  of  the  complete  suppression  of  con- 
sciousness. The  philosophical  system  emphasized 
contemplation  and  knowledge  as  the  way  of  final  re- 
lease. It  therefore  appealed  to  the  few.  Buddhism 
emphasized  action,  and  especially  action  in  behalf  of 
others,  as  the  means  of  attaining  to  Nirvana  or  eter- 
nal freedom  from  action.  This  appealed  powerfully 
to  human  sympathy  and  identified  in  this  strange 
way  the  interest  of  the  individual  in  his  fellow-men 
with  his  deepest  interest  in  himself.  Buddhism 
therefore  appealed  to  the  many. 

Each  was,  then,  in  its  own  way,  an  utterance  of 
the  despair  of  the  Hindu  mind.  At  the  same  time 
each,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  noticed,  involved  the  most 
glaring  contradiction.  The  one  declares  that  the 
only  way  of  release  from  pain  is  knowledge  ;  and  yet 
the  release  itself  consists  in  the  complete  extinction 
of  consciousness.  The  other  no  less  unequivocally 
regards  pain  as  inseparable  from  action,  and  com- 
plete cessation  from  action  as  the  final  goal  ;  and  yet 


102  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

this  very  goal  can  only  be  attained  thro  no- h  action. 

Both,  indeed,  completely  separate  the  theoretical 
from  the  practical  ;  and  thus,  in  either  case,  the  des- 
tiny of  man  proves  to  be  nothing  but  the  gradual 
canceling  of  all  positive  characteristics  \\\  his  nature 
until  he  vanishes  at  length  into  something  wholly 
unrecognizable,  even  wholly  without  the  power  of 
^<?//'-recognition — into  a  purely  abstract  existence 
which  it  seems  well-nigh  impossible  to  distinguish 
from  non-existence. 

Such,  then,  thus  briefly  indicated,  is  the  funda- 
mental characteristic  of  Buddhism.  It  is  but  one  of 
many  expressions  of  the  spirit  of  a  peculiar  people 
under  peculiar  conditions  of  development. 

III. 

If  now  we  turn  to  a  consideration  of  the  chief  con- 
ditions determining  the  historical  development  of 
Christianity,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  wholly 
different  scenes,  and  confronted  by  a  people  of  radi- 
cally different  convictions.  We  have  seen  that  with 
the  Hindus  there  was  an  abnormal  development  of  im- 
agination intensified  by  the  overwhelming  luxuriance 
of  surrounding  nature.  When  we  turn  to  the  Semitic 
race,  w^e  find  among  its  more  advanced  divisions  a 
special  development  of  shrewd,  practical  judgment 
intensified  by  the  barren  simplicity  of  the  outer 
world  in  the  midst  of  which  they  found  themselves  at 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  103 

home.  In  the  former  case  there  was  overwhelming 
tendency,  both  from  internal  nature  and  from  ex- 
ternal surroundings,  toward  endless  mystification. 
In  the  latter  case  there  was  a  powerful  and  likewise 
double  tendenc}'  toward  utmost  clearness  and  sim- 
plicity. 

Thus  with  the  Semitic  race  in  general,  and  with 
the  People  of  Israel  in  particular,  there  came  to  be 
developed  at  an  early  period  a  deep  sense  of  the  su- 
pernatural character  and  essential  unity  of  the  Highest 
Power,  as  also  of  the  complete  subordination  of  na- 
ture to  that  Power. 

Nay,  rather,  in  presence  of  that  Power,  Nature 
was  looked  upon  as  mere  means  and  instrument 
which  of  itself  is  mere  nothingness.  So  intense,  in- 
deed, did  this  feeling  of  the  Oneness  and  complete- 
ness and  matchless  might  of  the  Supreme  Power  be- 
come, that  men  found  full  satisfaction  in  dwelling 
upon  its  glories,  and  sought  for  themselves  only  a 
long,  prosperous  life  in  the  land  which  their  God  had 
given  them.  Far  from  exhausting  their  imagination 
in  attempts  to  picture  the  conditions  of  a  personal  im- 
mortality for  which,  until  late  in  their  history  as  a 
people,  they  seem  to  have  felt  no  need,  their  energies 
of  mind  and  body  were  devoted  to  the  enriching  of 
the  Present  and  to  the  enlargement  of  the  visible 
Kingdom  of  God  on  the  earth. 

True,    there   always   existed   a  strong   reactionary 


104  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

part}'  who  constantly,  and  at  times  more  or  less  suc- 
cessfully, sought  to  restore  the  worship  of  the  manj^ 
gods  of  the  old  nature-religion.  Progress,  there  as 
elsewhere  indeed,  could  only  be  made  through  cease- 
less struggle.  And  there,  more  than  elsewhere 
(doubtless  in  part  just  because  of  this  reactionary 
tendency),  the  steps  of  progress  took  the  paradoxical 
form  of  reversion  and  restoration.  The  highest  con- 
ception the  zealous  prophet  could  form  of  his  God 
and  of  the  divine  requirements,  that  conception  he 
boldly  and  sincerely  announced  as  a  long-neglected 
and  forgotten  command  of  Moses. 

From  this  standpoint,  indeed,  what  could  be  more 
natural  or  rational  ^  Was  not  Moses  the  ideal  law- 
giver ?  And  had  he  not  provided  his  people  with  a 
perfect  system  of  divinely  appointed  regulations  for 
their  guidance?  Assuredly,  if  the  code  of  laws 
known  in  the  prophet's  time  fell  short  in  anything,  it 
could  only  be  because  the  people  in  their  wayward- 
ness had  first  neglected  and  then  forgotten,  until 
there  remained  but  fragments  of,  the  perfect  law.  It 
must,  then,  be  the  duty  of  the  clear-eyed  prophet  to 
make  good  what  he  saw  to  be  wanting,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  warn  the  people  that  as  past  humiliation 
had  been  caused  by  neglect  of  these  requirements,  so 
future  misfortune  could  only  be  averted  by  their  ful- 
fillment. 

Thus   the    innovator   assumed    with    perfect  good 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  105 

faith  the  character  of  a  restorer,  and  wrought  his 
revolutions  with  the  sincerest  conviction  that  he  was 
but  bringing  back  the  purity  and  perfection  which 
his  uncritical  faith  led  him  to  attribute  to  the  patri- 
archal age. 

Nor  is  this  a  mere  arbitrary  conjecture,  it  having 
been  elaborately  proven  in  such  learned  works  as 
those  of  Ewald  and  Kuenen,  that  the  actual  historical 
mode  of  development  of  the  "Mosaic  Law,"  as  now 
n  understood  and  received,  was  substantially  that  just 
indicated.' 

But  note,  further,  that  from  the  time  of  the  deliv- 
erance from  Egypt  the  God  of  Israel  came  to  be  re- 
garded especially  in  the  light  of  a  Redeemer.  He 
would  save  his  people,  on  the  one  hand  from  outward 
submission  to  the  yoke  of  foreign  kings,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  from  inward  submission  to  the  influence 
of  foreign  gods.  This,  indeed,  is  but  a  special  phase 
of  the  general  conception  that  man  as  a  changeful, 
sinful  being  is  perpetually  in  need  of  redemption, 
perpetually  in  need  of  being  brought  back  to  and  rec- 
onciled with  a  changeless  God. 

The  purpose  of  the  party  of  progress  received  clear 
definition  through  the  work  of  Moses ;  and  from  his 
time  onward  the  struggle  to  elevate  to  a  higher 
standard  the  conceptions  which  the  people  entertained 


^Cf.  also  Canon  Driver's  Introductio7i  to  the  Literature  of 
the  Old  Testament,  5th  Ed.    1S94. 


106  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

concerning  their  God  was  carried  forward  with  ever- 
increasing  zeal  and  consistency. 

Not,  however,  until  near  the  close  of  their  career 
as  a  people  had  they  come  to  conceive  of  their  Divin- 
ity as  a  truly  universal  and  spiritual  Divinity.  Rather 
had  they  thought  of  Him  as  exclusively  their  God, 
whose  power  was  exerted  solely  in  their  behalf.  Nor 
did  they  ever  completely  escape  this  narrowness  of 
view.  In  truth,  their  national  enthusiasm  became 
the  more  intense,  the  farther  removed  the  realization 
of  their  national  ideal  appeared  to  be. 

It  was  precisely  their  incapacity  to  completely  uni- 
versalize their  national  ideal,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  were  approximately  universalizing  their  concep- 
tion of  their  national  God,  which  constituted  the 
tragical  element  in  the  history  of  the  People  of  Israel. 
The  final  result,  indeed,  could  not  be  doubtful.  The 
conception  of  a  universal  theocracy  with  its  capital  at 
Jerusalem,  and  with  the  Jews  for  its  ruling  class, 
must  of  necessity  bring  this  proud  people  into  ir- 
reconcilable hostility  with  the  whole  world.  And 
precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  they  were  baffled  in 
their  purposes  must  the  excitement  among  them  in- 
tensify. 

At  the  same  time,  this  extreme  anxiety  concerning 
their  political  future  could  not  but  react  powerfully 
upon  their  conceptions  in  the  realm  of  religion.  And 
so  much  the  more  as  the  state  was  looked    upon    as 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  107 

one  phase  merely  of  their  religion.  Thus  the  rela- 
tion of  man  to  the  Divine  came  in  this  peculiar  way 
to  be  the  one  all-absorbing  theme  in  that  period  of 
eager  hope  and  intense  mental  strain  which  followed 
the  Roman  occupancy  of  their  country.  A  political 
savior  was  looked  for  with  utmost  longing  ;  and  yet 
the  need  of  a  spiritual  savior  was  felt  no  less  deeply, 
at  least  on  the  part  of  the  more  thoughtful.  The 
general  view  was,  however,  that  both  these  needs 
must  be  met  in  the  same  person,  who  would  in  a 
special  manner  embody  the  Divine  Principle,  and 
with  w^hose  appearance  the  Theocracy,  the  genuine 
visible  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  would  assume  its 
completed  form. 

IV. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  excitement  and  ex- 
pectancy that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  made  his  appear- 
ance. No  man  ever  broke  more  completely  with  the 
traditions  of  his  own  race  and  the  convictions  of  his 
own  time.  And  yet,  like  other  and  earlier  prophets 
of  the  Hebrews,  he  was  profoundly  convinced  that 
his  mission  was  one  of  restoration  rather  than  of  in- 
novation. He  came,  as  he  himself  said,  to  fulfill,  not  to 
destroy — to  turn  divine  purpose  into  human  reality. 

At  the  same  time,  his  clear  vision  quickly  pene- 
trated through  all  forms  and  traditions,  and  recog- 
nized that  the  central  demand  of  the  time — nay,    of 


108  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

all  time— was  the  establishment,  not  of  a  visible 
Kingdom  of  God  on  the  earth,  but  rather  of  a  king- 
dom which  should  distinctly  and  finally  reject  all 
pretense  of  external  rule,  and  demand,  instead,  only 
the  homage  of  the  soul.  It  was  to  be  emphatically 
the  Kingdom  of  Truth,  the  Empire  of  the  Spirit. 
It  was  still  to  be  a  theocracy  indeed,  since  God  was 
to  be  the  sole  ruler.  Yet  at  the  same  time  God  was 
expressly  declared  to  be  a  Spirit  to  whom  homage 
must  be  rendered  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  rather  than 
in  forms  and  ceremonies.  The  external  and  vanish- 
ing is  set  aside  ;  the  internal,  the  spiritual  and  abid- 
ing, that  alone  is  held  fast  to  and  prized  as  possess- 
ing any  genuine  worth. 

Here,  then,  is  the  very  focus  of  Christianity.  The 
local  struggle  of  a  particular  and  peculiar  people  is 
universalized  and  transfigured  into  the  eternally  re- 
peated struggle  of  the  individual  spirit  to  establish 
within  itse// the  Kingdom  of  God.  For  ideall}^  this 
kingdom  is  already  within  every  spiritual  being,  and 
only  requires  to  be  developed  into  consistent  realiza- 
tion. What  else,  indeed,  but  the  successive  steps  in 
this  endless  process  of  realizing  the  Kingdom  of  God 
within  one  can  constitute  the  true  significance  of  the 
life  and  immortality  which  the  teachings  of  Christ 
have  brought  to  light  ? 

Precisel}'  here,  indeed,  lies  the  infinitel}*  profound 
significance  of  Christ's  Messianic  mission,  to  which 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  109 

the  Messianic  idea  underlying  the  whole  history  of 
the  People  of  Israel  naturally  leads  up.  Every  step 
in  the  genuine  progress  of  man,  ever}^  stage  of  his 
true  spiritual  development,  is  but  so  much  accom- 
plished toward  the  fulfillment  of  his  divine  Ideal. 
And  when  man's  caprice,  unfolding  as  it  does  in  crime 
and  sin,  is  understood  in  its  proper  significance  as  a 
wandering  away  from  God,  \vho  is  the  eternal  real- 
ized divine  Ideal  of  man,  then  is  it  seen  that  the 
whole  of  human  progress  is  but  the  total,  ceaseless- 
Messianic  Movement  that  brings  man  back  to  God. 
Here,  then,  it  becomes  manifest  that  every  advaiice^ 
properly  so  called,  is  no  less  truly  a  restoration.  Such 
is  the  ultimate  conception  of  the  restoration  and  ful- 
fillment of  the  law — the  divine  Law  of  the  Spirit, 
which  constitutes  the  fundamental  nature  of  the  soul 
of  man.    _ 

Something  fundamentally  akin  to  this,  indeed,  had 
already  been  wrought  out  in  another  way  b}^  Greek 
philosophy.  Aristotle  in  particular,  through  a 
thorough  investigation  of  the  doctrine  of  Causes  and 
of  the  relation  between  Substance  and  its  attributes, 
arrived  at  the  clear  conviction  that  the  world  or 
universe  in  all  its  phases  necessarily  presupposes  an 
absolute,  divine  Spirit  as  origin  and  support.  And 
he  declared  that  whoever  was  the  first  to  explicitly 
claim  that  Mind  governs  the  world,   "seemed  like    a 


110  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

sober  thinker  in  comparison  with  the  talkers- at-rati- 
dom  of  the  earlier  period.'" 

At  the  same  time,  the  conviction  of  Aristotle  was 
arrived  at  by  a  complex,  difficult  method  and  set 
forth  in  abstract,  unfamiliar  terms.  As  unfolded  by 
him,  therefore,  his  conception  of  the  fundamental 
truth  of  the  world  could  be  intelligible  only  to  the 
few  who  would  take  the  trouble  to  familiarize  them- 
selves with  the  special  method  and  the  special  termi- 
nology. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Man  of  Galilee  proclaimed 
the  same  fundamental  truth  with  a  directness  and 
simplicity  that  appeal  to  all  seriously  minded  people 
regardless  of  technical  acquirements.  x\nd  still 
further,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  this  infinitely  clear 
recognition  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  and  hence 
of  the  essential  oneness  of  the  human  and  the  Divine 
JSTature,  involving  the  immortality  of  man,  awakened 
within  him  the  deepest  yearning  toward  the  oppressed 
and  despairful  multitudes.  Hence  it  was  with 
special  zeal  that  he  proclaimed  his  glad  tidings  to 
the  poor.  These,  too,  must  be  taught  to  value 
rightly  their  own  destiny  as  immortal  beings. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  the  Buddha  also  mani- 
fested vast  sympathy  for  the  poor,  and  addressed  his 


1  Metaphysics:  Book  I,  Chap.  III.  The  usual  rendering 
of  this  passage — "seemed  like  a  sober  man  in  the  midst  of 
the  drunken" — may  be  more  picturesque,  but  it  is  non-Aris- 
totelian both  in  form  and  in  substance. 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  Ill 

words  of  comfort  especially  to  them.  This,  indeed, 
seems  beyond  question.  And  here  we  have  a  simi- 
larity of  real  interest  and  significance. 

The  difference,  however,  is  not  less  significant. 
The  Buddha  shared  in  the  superstition  of  his  race. 
He  belived,  with  them,  in  a  fearful  immortality  of 
transmigration  and  measureless  pain.  His  procla- 
mation was  that  of  a  way  of  escape  from  this.  And 
the  escape  was  to  consist  in  the  final  swoon  of 
Nirvana  from  which  the  soul  was  never  more  to 
wake.     This  is  assuredly  the  religion  of  Pessimism. 

The  Christ,  on  the  contrary,  proclaims  the  Beati- 
tudes. This  brief  life,  charged  as  it  so  often  is  with 
pain,  is  not  the  All.  He  who  will  deny  himself  of 
everything  that  is  inconsistent  with  justice  and 
mercy,  and  who  will  conform  in  his  life  to  the  law  of 
the  Spirit,  is  assured  of  an  immortality  of  ever-inten- 
sifying co7iscionsness  involving  not  merely  rest  and 
freedom  from  pain,  but  also  infinite — that  is,  free  or 
self-consistent — activity,  bringing  the  ^(?<?/d'5/',  richest, 
most  positive  enjoynnent.  Assuredly  this  is  the  religion 
of  Optiynism. 

Aristotle,  in  his  philosophy,  had  transcended  the 
religion  of  the  Greeks,  as  Christ,  in  his  prophetic, 
divinely  human  way,  transcended  the  limits  of  all 
special,  local  forms  of  faith.  Aristotle  looked  stead- 
fastly beyond  the  fading  forms  of  the  Greek  gods,  and 
saw  the  necessary  unity  of  the   Divine  Principle  in 


112  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRLSTIANITY. 

one  absolute,  eternal  Spirit.  Christ  looked  within 
the  human  soul  and  saw  there  the  image,  the  spir- 
itual likeness,  the  ideal  nature  of  the  Divine.  And 
his  mission  came  to  be  summed  up,  as  we  have  al- 
ready intimated,  in  the  struggle  to  awaken  men  to  a 
clear  consciousness  of  this  divine  ideal  common  to 
all,  and  also  to  arouse  them  to  a  determined  effort 
toward  its  realization  within  themselves  through  the 
perfecting  of  their  own  lives.  1 

And  yet,  with  the  intense  political  excitement 
among  his  owni  people,  together  with  the  complete 
preoccupancy  of  their  minds  with  the  ideal  of  2,  politi- 
cal messiah,  it  was  but  inevitable  that  they  should 
give  little  heed  to  his  words. 

V. 

Nor  is  it  without  deep  significance  that  this  religion 
found  permanent  acceptance  first  with  the  Greeks, 
among  whom  the  foremost  minds  had  already  reflec- 
tively discovered  the  inner  law  of  the  spirit  ;  and 
secondly  with  the  Romans  who  had  for  five  centuries 
been  unconsciously  developing  the  external  forms  of 
that  law. 

It  is  true  that  with  the  Romans  this  process  was  a 
severe  and  even  relentless  one,  as  is  illustrated  by  the 
story  of  lyivy  that  after  the  expulsion  of  the  kings  the 
young  nobles  complained  bitterly  of  the  pitiless  laws 
which  could  not  be  appealed  to  for  sympathy  or  in- 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  113 

diligence,  and  dealt  with  high  and  low  alike.  The 
growth  of  Roman  law  and  the  spread  of  Roman  rule 
was,  indeed,  a  leveling  process.  But  it  taught  men, 
in  however  abstract  and  one-sided  a  fashion,  the  sig- 
nificant lesson  that  the  same  principles  apply  univer- 
sally and  alike  to  all  men  in  their  relations  one  with 
another. 

Here,  then,  Christianity  found  its  way  prepared 
and  its  work  already  begun,  though  only  from  the 
outside.  The  old  Roman  institutions  were,  indeed, 
essentially  pagan  ;  and  Christianty  could  not  fail  of 
fierce  opposition  from  the  ruling  class.  For  its  suc- 
cess involved,  and  was  felt  at  the  time  to  involve,  in 
important  respects,  a  political  as  well  as  a  religious 
revolution.  Spite  of  all  opposition,  indeed,  the  revo- 
lution came.  Old  institutions  were  swept  away,  and 
new  ones  embodying  the  now  victorious  faith  took 
shape. 

After  all,  then,  the  purely  spiritual  theocracy 
which  Christ  proclaimed  could  not  remain  altogether 
indifferent  to  the  visible  and  temporal  kingdoms  of 
the  world.  For  the  visible  and  temporal  proves  to 
be  but  the  series  of  forms  which  the  invisible  and 
eternal  assumes  in  its  caseless  round  of  activity.  In 
proportion  as  man  advances  in  the  adequacy  of  his 
conceptions  of  the  Divine  and  of  his  own  relations  to 
the  Divine,  in  like  degree  must  he  find  it  necessary 
to  reconstruct  external   forms  and   institutions,  lest 


114  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

they  shall  come  at  length  to  contradict  instead  of 
giving  proper  utterance  to  his  increasingly  adequate 
conceptions. 

It  is  a  deeply  significant  fact,  however,  that  the 
Roman  Law^  which  had  so  long  been  maturing,  re- 
mained. Though  developed  under  pagan  rule,  it 
was  found  to  be  Christian  law  ;  for  it  embodied  the 
universal  principles  of  the  human  spirit,  and  was 
thus  the  expression  of  Justice  between  man  and  man, 
regardless  of  time,  or  place,  or  race. 

Thus,  after  the  establishment  of  the  Christian- 
Roman  Empire  upon  a  firm  basis  there  occurs  a  period 
of  special  activity  in  the  study,  interpretation,  and 
development  of  Roman  law  ;  and  a  Christian  em- 
peror leads  the  wa}^  in  securing  a  classification  and 
reduction  to  manageable  form  of  this  sublime  monu- 
ment of  the  genius  of  the  Roman  people. 

So,  again,  this  Christianized  Roman  Empire, 
which  finds  the  laws  thus  developed  specially  adapted 
to  its  wants  and  altogether  adequate  to  its  purposes, 
even  serves  in  important  respects  as  the  model  for  the 
organization,  on  the  side  of  external  authority,  of 
that  mighty  spiritual  empire  which  also  came  to  have 
its  centre  in  Rome  ;  but  which,  on  the  side  of  interyial 
spiritual  growth,  must  ever  find  its  centre  and  circum- 
ference in  the  soul  of  the  devout  seeker  after  Truth, 
be  he  ever  so  humble. 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  115 

VI. 

We  have  already  noticed  that  in  Buddhism  there 
is  developed  complete  separation  between  the  active 
and  the  passive,  between  the  theoretical  and  the 
practical.  Our  task  further  requires  that  we  consider 
in  what  manner  Christianity  has  dealt  with  these 
antithetical  phases  of  life. 

And  first  it  is  to  be  noted  that  during  its  earliest 
days,  and  for  three  centuries  from  the  time  of  its 
founder,  its  votaries  were  constantly  called  upon  to 
exercise  the  passive  characteristic  of  endurance.  Pa- 
tience, submission,  self-restraint — these  are  the  spe- 
cially lustrous  virtues  of  the  early  Christians. 

And  yet  this  passivity  is,  after  all,  only  one  phase 
of  a  genuine  and  vigorous  activity.  "He  that  ruleth 
his  own  spirit  is  greater  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 
Patience  and  submission,  based  on  clear  conviction  of 
moral  worth,  mean  active  self-conquest  \  and  the 
strength  of  character  thus  developed  proves  to  be 
energy  stored  for  further  uses.  And  not  only  so,  but 
no  sooner  does  the  individual  become  thoroughly 
permeated  by  the  new  spirit,  with  its  passivity  toward 
external  opposition,  than  he  enters  aggressively  upon 
the  work  of  winning  others  to  the  same  faith. 

Practically,  then  the  active  and  the  passive  can 
never  be  completely  separated.  And  this  proves  true 
in   the  history   of   Buddhism  also.     But  this  funda- 


116  BUDDHISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

mental  distinction  is  to  be  emphasized  here,  namely  : 
That  the  activity  displayed  by  Buddhism  has  for  its 
purpose  the  suppression  of  all  positive  characteristics, 
in  order  to  the  attainment  of  final  and  complete 
passivity.  Buddhism,  indeed,  presents  no  clear  con- 
viction of  genuine  moral  worth,  for  it  contams  no 
clear  conception  of  spirit  or  mind  in  its  fundamental 
nature.  Hence  it  can  only  seek  a  negative  release  from 
pain  through  the  ultimate  suppression  of  all  activity. 

Christianity,  on  the  contrary,  with  its  clear  grasp 
of  the  fundamental  nature  of  the  spirit,  shows  its 
period  of  relative  passivity  to  be  also  a  period  of  dis- 
cipline and  clearly  defined  evolution.  Slowly  and 
silently  indeed,  but  also  irresistibly,  the  new  faith 
with  its  transforming  power  compelled  the  assent  of 
reason,  and  became  the  dominant,  formative  prin- 
ciple in  the  lives  of  men  throughout  the  Roman 
world.  In  a  new  and  far  profounder  sense  than  had 
before  been  realized  in  this  world,  the  passive  phase 
of  the  lesson  of  submission  and  uncomplaining  obedi- 
ence was  fairly  learned,  and  men  at  length  knew  how 
to  patiently  "bear  the  cross." 

But  this  was  not  the  whole  of  the  lesson.  By  slow 
degrees  the  maturing  spirit  gained  power  of  wider 
vision  into  its  external  conditions,  and  of  deeper  pen- 
etration into  its  own  inner  nature.  It  could  no  longer 
remain  predominantly  passive,  even  externally. 
Suddenly,  at  length,  toward  the  close  of  the  eleventh 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  117 

century,  the  voice  of  Peter  the  Hermit  rings  through 
Europe.  It  is  a  new  signal  for  Christianity.  It  is  a 
call  to  arms,  though  solely  in  behalf  of  the  ideal  ele- 
ment in  the  Christian  faith.  And  Christian  Europe 
is  ready  for  the  call.  Kings,  princes,  bishops,  the 
pope — all  are  moved.  The  people  crowd  together  in 
vast  multitudes,  listen  breathlessly,  then  cry  out 
with  a  voice  like  the  sea  :  "God  wills  it  !  God  wills 
it !"  And  at  once  banners,  robes,  all  things  available 
are  torn  into  strips  and  sewn  cross-wise  on  the  shoul- 
ders and  breasts  of  the  eager  thousands  who  have 
suddenly  become  fired  with  unquenchable  zeal  to 
rescue  the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  the  hands  of  the  in- 
fidels. 

The  cross  thus  ceases  to  be  a  mere  symbol  of  sub- 
mission and  endurance,  and  becomes  thenceforth  a 
symbol  of  aggression  and  conquest. 

True,  this  significance  of  the  symbol  was  at  first 
seized  only  superficially.  And  yet  even  this  superficial 
phase  of  its  meaning  was  purely  ideal  ;  a  fact  which 
stamps  the  movement  of  the  crusades  as  one  of  the 
most  significant  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world. 
Here,  for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history,  a 
purely  spiritual  ideal  seizes  upon  a  whole  group  of 
peoples  and  moves  them  to  take  part  with  an  all- 
absorbing  enthusiasm  in  one  grand  common  enter- 
prise, which  has  for  its  exclusive  purpose  to  honor 


118  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

God  and  bring  the  souls  of  men  into  a  closer  union 
with  Him. 

Nor  does  the  superficiality  of  that  phase  of  the 
meaning  seized  by  the  earlier  crusaders  long  escape 
notice.  The  conquest  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Hcly 
Sepulchre  is  hardly  accomplished  when  the  crusaders 
themselves  begin  to  experience  a  somewhat  uneasy 
feeling,  as  if  the  real  purpose  of  the  movement  were 
after  all  not  exactly  accomplished.  And  when,  later, 
Louis  the  Ninth  of  France  (St.  Louis  of  later  times) 
begins  making  preparation  to  carry  out  an  unreflect- 
ing vow  of  his  early  youth  to  go  on  a  crusade  to  the 
Holy  City,  the  most  thoughtful,  both  among  clergy 
and  laity,  endeavor  to  dissuade  him  from  it.  It  is 
felt,  if  not  clearly  seen,  that  the  best  crusade  the 
king  could  carry  on  would  be  a  crusade  negatively 
against  wrong  within  his  own  dominions,  and  posi- 
tively for  the  perfecting  of  the  state.  For  the  state  is 
itself,  in  truth,  but  a  means  to  the  development  of 
whatever  is  noble  and  worthy  in  man. 

It  was  not,  after  all,  a  dead,  but  a  living  Saviour  ; 
not  a  buried,  but  a  risen  Lord  whom  the  true  crusader 
must  serve.  Not  for  the  possession  of  tombs,  but  for 
the  possession  of  the  living  Spirit  would  he  struggle. 

Thus  we  are  brought  round  again  to  the  seemingly 
passive  phase  of  symbolically  bearing  the  cross 
through  meekness  and  endurance,  and  find  this  to  be, 
after  all,  the  truer  crusade.     For,  as  we  have  seen,  it 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  119 

proves  to  be,  in  truth,  an  active  process,  consisting  of 
the  genuinely  aggressive  movement  of  self-conquest. 

Nevertheless,  for  the  completion  of  this  inward 
movement  there  was  required  also  an  outward  one, 
consisting  of  the  kindling  of  just  such  flame  of  uni- 
versal enthusiasm  as  that  which  lighted  the  way  to 
the  great  crusades,  which  fused  all  hearts  into  one- 
ness of  purpose,  and  at  length  awakened  all  minds 
into  more  or  less  clear  consciousness  that  the  Divine 
is,  above  all,  to  be  honored  through  ceaseless  struggle 
to  refine  and  perfect  the  soul  of  man. 

But  organization — in  short,  the  whole  institutional 
world — is  needful  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  end. 
Individual  man  can  attain  to  the  fullest  realization  of 
himself  as  an  i?idividual  only  through  combination 
with  his  fellow-man.  Here,  indeed,  lies  the  deep- 
reaching  paradox  of  the  Christian  world  He  alone 
can  hope  to  be  free,  in  any  true  sense,  who  co7n- 
pletely  subordinates  himself  to  a  highly  complex 
social  organism.  He  who  loses  his  life  finds  it. 
Hence  the  crusading  spirit  finds  its  true  permanent 
sphere  of  activity  in  the  development  of  the  world  of 
institutions — the  degree  of  the  completeness  of  which 
world  indicates,  and  also  in  great  measure  deter- 
mines, the  well-being  of  man. 

Careful  reflection,  indeed,  leads  us  to  see  that  this 
paradox  of  Christianity  is  but  the  universal  paradox 
of  the  world.     Every  phase  of  existence  is  antitheti- 


120  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

cal.  Everything  is  its  own  opposite.  It  is  precisely 
because  Christianity  recognizes  this  duality,  or 
rather  infinite  manifoldness,  in  every  phase  of  unity, 
that  it  possesses  so  rich,  so  concrete  a  significance  in 
the  world's  history.  This  it  is,  too,  which  brings  it 
into  such  pronounced  contrast  with  Buddhism  and 
with  all  pantheistic  forms  of  faith. 

In  further  illustration  of  this,  we  have  but  to  re- 
call the  estimate  formed  of  pain  in  the  different 
creeds  of  the  world.  The  Hindu  mind,  including 
the  Buddhistic  development,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, has  invariabl}^  regarded  pain  as  having  ob- 
jective reality.  To  live  is  to  suffer.  All  change,  all 
activity,  of  necessity  involves  pain,  which  is  ever 
wholly  evil.  Hence  life  and  activity  are,  above  all 
things,  to  be  shunned.  The  only  substantial  pur- 
pose of  life  and  activity  is  to  escape  from  life  and 
action. 

Christianity,  on  the  contrary,  subordinates  pain 
absolutely  ;  and  in  doing  so  transjorms  it  into  a  good. 
The  law  of  the  spirit  is  reason,  self-consistency. 
Evil  is  unreason,  the  conflict  of  self  with  self.  Or, 
more  explicitl}',  error  is  the  conflict  of  self  with  self 
in  thought  ;  evil  is  the  conflict  of  self  with  self  in  ac- 
tion; while  pain  is  the  conflict  of  self  with  self  in 
feeling  or  emotion.  But  these  three  phases  are  in- 
separable from  one  another  :  and  error,  evil,  and  pain 
are  but  different  aspects  of  the  same  complex  spiritual 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  121 

fact  of  self-contradiction  ;  just  as  truth,  right  and 
joy  are  but  three  different  and  yet  at  the  same  time 
complementary  aspects  of  the  one  complex  spiritual 
fact  of  self-harmony — the  coalescing  of  the  real  with 
the  ideal  self. 

Now  this  self-harmony,  the  symmetrical  unfolding 
of  the  spirit  in  accordance  with  its  essential  nature  or 
ideal  as  a  thinking,  acting,  sentient  energy,  is  the 
supreme  demand  of  Christianity.  "Be  ye  therefore 
perfect  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is 
perfect."  That  is  the  way  to  escape  pain.  Do  away 
with  your  negative,  unreal  self.  Realize  your  true, 
positive  self. 

So  far  indeed  from  pain  being  an  evil,  it  is  essen- 
tially opposed  to  evil.  It  is  assuredly  inseparable 
from  wrong -doing,  but  for  that  very  reason  it  tends 
ever  toward  correcting  the  wrong-doing.  Instead  of 
being  an  evil  it  is  rather  a  disguised  divine  messen- 
ger— a  kind  of  fifth  Evangel  that  has  never  ceased 
crying  aloud  to  men  since  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  warning  them  of  the  ruin  that  must  ever  follow 
upon  wrong  doing,  and  thus  urging  the  choice  of  the 
divine  Way  of  Truth  that  leads  to  eternal  lyife.  For 
the  wrong-doer,  through  his  evil  deed,^  lessens  his 
power  for  action  of  a7iy  kind,  and  hence  his  power  for 


^Evil-doing,  sin,  is  just  the  universal  death-process,     cf 
above,  p.  24  fol. 


122  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

wrong  action.  Evil  is  therefore  self-destructive,  and 
hence  has  no  true,  abiding  reality. 

Were  all  action  evil,  then  indeed  Buddhism  would 
be  right,  and  non-existence  must  be  the  final  goal  of 
all  things.  Only,  the  "blowing-out"  (^Nirvaym') 
must  have  long  since  occurred,  leaving  no  further 
possibility  of  controversy.  Or  rather  there  never 
could  have  been  anything  else  than  vcL^x^non- being. 

Here  again,  then,  Christianity  proves  to  be  an  op- 
timistic religion,  since  it  points  to  the  Good  as  the 
self  consistent,  and  therefore  possessed  of  unlimited 
power  of  development  ;  while  it  points  with  equal 
distinctness  to  the  evil  as,  in  its  nature,  self-destruc- 
tive, and  as  therefore  necessarily  a  vanishing  phase. 

VII. 

But  again  ;  the  demand  of  Christianity  for  the  per- 
fection of  the  spirit  is  essentially  a  demand  for  a 
harmonious  development  between  the  theoretical  and 
the  practical — between  thought  and  action.  On  the 
one  hand,  man  is  to  "prove  all  things,"  while  on  the 
other,  he  is  to  "hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  He 
is  to  display  eiiergy  of  reflectioji  as  well  as  eiiergy  in 
his  deeds.  In  truth,  his  deeds  themselves  must  be 
reasonable,  and  this  of  itself  implies  reflection  at 
every  turn.  Man's  activity  must  be  a  thinki)ig  ac- 
tivity. Indeed,  thought  is  itself  the  characteri  tic  act 
of  man;    and,   finally,   is   the  defining  factor    of  all 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  1Z3 

real  activity — of  all  reality.  The  theoretical  and  the 
practical  are  no  less  absolutely  inseparable  than  are 
the  active  and  the  passive.  There  can  be  no  truly 
concrete  life  otherwise  than  through  the  fused  unity 
of  these  antithetical  elements. 

It  was  but  inevitable,  therefore,  that  Christianity, 
as  the  genuine  Relision  of  the  Spirit,  should  demand 
and  constantly  bring  into  service  the  best,  that  is  to 
say,  the  truest,  most  adequate  thought  of  the  world. 
Note  historically  how  early  Plato  and  Aristotle  are 
brought  under  requisition  as  furnishing  a  method  for 
systematizing,  for  the  speculative  reason,  the  truths 
which  Christianity  presents  in  the  first  place  under 
forms  that  appeal  to  the  imagination. 

The  early  Church  Fathers,  with  their  m.ystical  in- 
terpretations of  Christian  conceptions,  very  naturally 
found  in  Alexandrine  Platonism  a  congenial  mode  of 
exposition  ;  while  the  scholasticism  of  the  Middle 
Ages  could  find  nowhere  else  than  in  Aristotle  an 
adequate  method  for  dealing  reflectively  with  the 
truths  of  the  Spirit. 

This  movement,  besides,  led  at  length  to  an  in- 
dependent development  of  distinctively  Christian 
philosophy.  St.  Thomas  Aqiihias  takes  the  place  of 
Aristotle.  And  yet  this  later  development  is  so  far 
one-sided  as  to  exalt  the  intellect  above  the  will — the 
theoretical  above  the  practical — instead  of  recognizing 


124  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

that  these  are  but  co-ordinate  phases  of  the  fiuida- 
7nental  unit lof  the  Spirit. 

The  philosophy  of  Aquinas  was,  indeed,  but  the 
culmination  or  rendering  explicit  of  what  was  in- 
volved in  the  dictum  of  St.  Anselm  ;  ^^ I  believe  i7t  or- 
der that  I  may  know.'"''  It  lies  upon  the  very  sur- 
face of  this  dictum  that  faith  is  but  one  stage,  and 
that  a  preliminary  or  elementary  stage,  of  know^ledge. 
A  little  evidence  gives  rise  to  belief,  which  is  a  vague, 
imperfect  phase  of  knowledge.  Additional  evidence, 
actively  received,  results  in  the  deepening  of  knowl- 
edge. And  this  process  continued  at  length  turns 
probability  into  certainty,  timid  belief  into  assumed 
confidence. 

A  little  further  consideration  makes  it  apparent 
that  there  is  also  involved  in  the  fundamental  con- 
ception, common  to  Anselm  and  Aquinas,  this  sig- 
nificant truth  :  That  a  revelation  to  man  implies  that 
it  is  understood  by  man.  A  revelation  that  is  not  in 
some  measure  understood  is  not  yet  revealed — is  no 
revelatio7i  at  all.  And  it  becomes  more  and  more 
truly  a  revelation  precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  it 


^And  thus  transcends  the  relatively  unthinking  stand- 
point of  Tertulian  :  '■''Credo  quia  absurduni.'^  Even  here, 
however,  Tertulian  expresses  in  hyperbole  his  boundless 
faith  in  the  perfection  of  Reason  as  realized  in  the  Divine  on 
the  one  hand  and  his  distrust  on  the  other  hand  of  Reason  as 
imperfectly  realized  in  man,  as  he  is  here  and  now.  His 
words  are  hardly  the  self-stultification  they  are  commonly 
assumed  to  be. 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  12S 

is  more  perfectly  comprehended.  It  is,  in  short, 
as  remarked  at  the  outset  of  this  paper,  to  the  Reason 
— to  the  intelligence — and  to  that  alone  that  a  reve- 
lation ever  is  or  can  be  given.  It  is  the  Reason  and 
that  alone  which  can  decide,  on  final  appeal,  as  to 
the  merits  of  a  proposed  revelation.  Man  must  first 
of  all  make  searching  proof  of  what  is  offered  him, 
lest  at  length  he  find  himself  holding  fast  to  that 
which  is  far  else  than  good. 

In  perfect  consistency  with  this  truth,  which  is 
implied  in  the  very  nature  of  the  Religion  of  the 
Spirit,  the  foundation  of  schools  for  the  cultivation 
and  development  of  thought  has  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  the  advance  of  Christianity.  Indeed,  the  Chris- 
tian Church  itself  is  essentially  a  vast  school.  Every 
pulpit  is  a  professorial  chair  ;  every  minister  is,  in  his 
own  way,  a  teacher  of  Righteousness,  appealing  con- 
stantly to  the  understanding  as  well  as  to  the  imagi- 
nation, struggling  to  enlighten  men's  minds,  to  in- 
crease their  comprehension  of  the  Divine  Revelation 
and  thus  to  render  it  a  revelation  in  ever  truer  sense 
to  each  individual  man.  And  precisely  in  the  degree 
in  which  he  does  this  successfully  is  he  a  ^ninister  of 
divine  thiiigs. 

Nay,  Christianity  in  effect  ascribes  to  the  whole 
world  the  character  of  a  school .  '  'The  law  is  a  school- 
master, leading  men  to  Christ."  Not  merely  the 
formal  law  of  outworn  phases  of  religion,  but  rather 


126  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

the  universal  law  of  the  Spirit  as  expressed  in  all  hu- 
man institutions  (which  give  utterance  more  or  less 
adequately  to  what  is  essentially  rational  and  there- 
fore right)  this  law,  impressing  itself  more  and  more 
-deeply  upon  the  gradually  unfolding  spirit  of  man, 
must  tend  ever  to  awaken  men  to  a  deeper  conscious- 
ness of  the  ideal  perfection,  the  essential  unity  and 
universalty,  of  spirit  or  mind. 

Still  further  :  the  world  of  nature,  as  contrasted 
with  the  world  of  man,  proves  also  to  have  its  laws, 
its  manifestations  of  Reason.  And  as  man  becomes 
more  clearly  conscious  of  these  laws  he  is  driven  on- 
ward, with  ever-increasing  rapidity,  toward  the  rec- 
ognition of  a  universal  and  divine  Spirit  as  the  neces- 
sary presupposition  of  nature  and  its  laws. 

Thus  the  Religion  of  the  Spirit  addresses  itself  to 
the  spirit,  and  demands  the  fullest  possible  unfolding 
of  the  spirit.  Truth,  the  perfect  Revelation,  is  eter- 
nally present  in  all  its  completeness  in  the  Universe  ; 
but  it  depends  upon  each  individual  whether  he  will 
unfold  his  power  to  comprehend  it  and  thus  make  of 
it  a  revelation  indeed  and  in  truth  to  hitn.  And 
this,  clearly,  involves  the  fullest  development  of  the 
reflective  power  of  the  mind.  It  is  only  after  the  de- 
parture of  the  visible  Messiah  that  the  divine  Spirit 
of  Truth  will  be  manifest  to  the  individual  in  its  full- 
ness, and  thus  lead  him  into  all  truth.  It  is,  in  other 
"words,  onl}'-   by  transcending   the    sphere   in  which 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  127 

thought  is  wrapped  in  imagery,  and  is  therefore 
finite,  that  the  soul  gains  the  mastery  of  Truth  in  its 
infinite  nature,  and  thus  becomes  free  indeed. 

Christianity,  then,  has  for  its  fundamental  prin- 
ciple the  spirituality  of  the  Divine  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  spirituality  of  man  on  the  other,  with  the 
necessary  corollary  of  the  essential  oneness  in  nature 
or  type  of  the  human  and  the  Divine.  It  is  with  per- 
fectly logical  consistency,  therefore,  that  this  religion 
demands  a  ceaseless  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  indi- 
vidual for  practical  perfection — for  the  constant  un- 
folding into  reality  of  his  own  ultimate  and  essen- 
tially divine  ideal — for  the  complete  blending  in  his 
own  life  of  the  theoretical  and  the  practical. 

VIII. 

The  Christian  faith  thus  proves  to  be  at  once  the 
outgrowth  and  infinitely  reverent  expression  of  Reason 
itself.  And  as  such  it  has  ever  received  the  most 
profoundly  reverent  treatment  from  those  who  have 
claimed  most  for  Reason — from  those  who  have 
claimed  on  the  one  hand  that  the  essential,  all-vivi- 
fying Truth  of  the  universe  is  absolute  Divine  Reason 
eternally  realized  in  all  its  fullness  ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  that  human  reason,  to  be  reason  at  all, 
must  be  of  the  same  nature  as  the  Divine  Reason, 
and  hence  must  be  infinitely  perfectible. 

To  such  minds  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  dark,  fateful 


128  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

background  of  the  absolutely  "unknowable."  There 
is,  indeed,  an  infinite  range  of  practically  unfolded 
phases  of  the  Divine  Reason  which  the  finite'  mind 
can  never  hope  to  wholly  master  in  detail,  and  yet  of 
which  there  is  no  single  phase  which  in  its  nature  is 
absolutely  beyond  the  power  of  the  finite  mind  to 
comprehend. 

Here  the  all-important  thing  to  make  and  keep 
clear  is  the  distinction  just  suggested  between  the 
impossibility  of  an  exhaustive  knowledge  on  our  part 
of  the  world  or  universe  in  detail  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  entire  possibility,  on  the  other  hand,  of  ar- 
riving at  a  clear  and  absolutely  certain  knowledge  of 
the  world  as  a  whole  in  its  fundamental  character, 
which  character  is  that  of  a  necessarily  self-complete, 
self-active  unity,  whose  phases  of  self-realization  con- 
stitute the  concrete  sum  of  all  that  is  possible  in  a 
perfectly  rational  world.  In  such  world  "what  is 
actual  is  rational,  and  what  is  rational  is  actual."  It 
is  this  infinitely  active,  vital  Totality  which  consti- 
tutes the  practically  unfolded  and  3^et  forever  unfold- 
ing phases  of  the  Divine  Reason  ;  which  process  again 
is  the  eternal  Revelation  addressed  to  the  finite  spirit 
as  itself  at  once  a  reflection  and  reproduction  of  the 
Divine  Reason,  and  hence  capable  of  comprehending 
the  revelation. 


'It  is  to  be  noted  that  "mind"  can  be  finite  only  in  the  de- 
gree of  realization  of  the  one  universal  Ideal  of  Mind  in  the 
case  of  a  given  individual  thinking  unit. 


BUDDHISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  129 

It  is  not  then  that  this  revelation  comes  to  vian, 
but  rather  that  man,  in  his  self-unfolding  as  a  spir- 
itual being,  coijies  to  the  revelatio7i,  and  in  so  doing 
comes  to  Jmnself;  for  he  finds  at  "the  same  time  that 
the  truth  of  this  revelation  is  involved  in  his  own 
ideal  nature.  The  whole  history  of  humanity  in  its 
deepest  significance,  therefore,  has  been  nothing  else 
than  a  feeling  after,  a  half-blind  search  for,  God  ; 
who,  after  we  have  found  Him,  proves  to  have  been, 
all  the  while,  "not  far  from  every  one  of  us." 

It  may  be  remarked  by  the  way  that  the  fatal  point 
of  confusion  in  agnosticism  is  the  failure  to  recognize 
the  distinction,  just  pointed  out,  between  the  world 
as  knowable  in  its  fundamental  principle,  and  j^et  as 
also  unknowable  in  the  sense  that  no  finite  mind  can, 
in  any  finite  time,  ever  attain  to  complete,  exhaustive 
knowledge  of  it  in  its  infinite  details.  The  latter  is 
the  only  "unknowable"  world.  And  yet,  it  would 
seem  scarcely  necessary  to  remark,  this  "unknowable" 
is  not  the  "world,"  but  only  a  perpetually  vanishing 
phase  thereof — vanishing  more  or  less  effectually  and 
rapidly  in  proportion  to  the  vigor  and  wisdom  and 
consistency  of  the  individual's  own  efforts  toward 
self-development  in  power  to  know. 

It  thus  becomes  evident  (whatever  the  narrowness 
and  bigotry  displayed  betimes  by  certain  classes  of 
the  advocates  of  Christianity,  moved  as  they  are 
rather  by  zeal  than  by   knowledge)  that  the  genuine 


130  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

spirit  of  Christianity  itself  demands  the  freest,  most 
perfect  unfolding  of  the  intelligence  ;  that  it  appeals 
constantly  to  the  reflective  consciousness  or  Reason, 
encouraging  all  earnest  effort  to  comprehend  and  in- 
terpret into  utmost  clearness  all  phases  of  the  infinite 
Revelation  present  in  the  world,  physical  and  spir- 
itual. 

This,  indeed,  is  the  true  reason  why  Christianity 
is,  and  since  its  advent  into  history  has  ever  been, 
the  fundamental  faith  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  world 
who  have  participated  in  the  development  of  true 
science.  The  critical  spirit,  which  demands  that  all 
things  shall  be  "proven,"  rigidly  tested,  before  they 
are  accepted  as  "good,"  is  nothing  else  than  the  per- 
fectly health)^  phase  of  skepticism  which  gives  to 
modern  science  its  keenly  penetrating  power.  It  is 
but  the  negative  phase  belonging  essentially  to  all 
genuinely  positive  thought. 

And  what  has  been  the  record  of  Buddhism  in  this 
respect?  The  answer  may  be  very  briefly  stated. 
Based  on  superstition,  it  has  ever  dealt  in  superstition 
and  found  its  home  among  people  dominated  by  su- 
perstition. The  Chinese  are  classed  as  Buddhists 
But  their  reverence  for  Buddha  does  not  in  the  least 
interfere  with  their  building  shrines  to  millions  of  na- 
tive local  divinities.  Buddhism  has  not,  in  fact,  dis- 
placed the  ancient  religions  of  any  of  the  regions 
where  it  has  found   acceptance.     It  has  not  proven 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  131 

itself  sufficiently  vital  to  overthrow  even  the  gross 
nature-worship  of  the  rude  Mongoloid  races,  much 
less  to  appeal  successfully  to  the  people  of  a  higher 
culture — unless,  indeed,  that  phase  of  the  compara- 
tive study  of  religions  which  discovers  similarities 
and  discerns  no  differences  should  bring  it  into  favor 
at  last  in  enlightened  Europe  and  America. 

Christianity  on  its  part  is  far  less  tolerant.  It  re- 
fuses to  take  its  place  beside  other  faiths.  It  demands 
absolute  single-mindedness,  uniformly  declaring  that 
no  man  can  serve  two  masters.  Wherever  it  has 
been  thoroughly  accepted,  it  has  completely  dis- 
placed the  old  nature-divinities  and  brought  about  the 
exclusive  worship  of  one  sole  Divinity  whom  it  ever 
declares  to  be  a  Spirit.  Wherever  the  missionary  of 
this  faith  goes,  he  carries  with  him  the  implements 
and  methods  of  "secular"  education  as  well,  thus 
practically  announcing  with  every  step  that  Chris- 
tianity can  be  received  in  its  true  spirit  and  signifi- 
cance no  otherwise  than  by  intelligence  ;  and  the 
more  truly  and  adequately  received,  in  proportion  as 
the  intelligence  is  given  a  more  thoroughly  scientific 
— that  is,  more  thoroughly  rational — training.  In 
short,  where  science  has  most  deeply  penetrated, 
there  Christianity  is  seen  to  have  alread}^  found  the 
most  thorough  appreciation  and  most  genuine  accep- 
tance. 


132  BUDDHISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

IX. 

At  this  stage  of  our  investigation  it  will,  doubtless, 
be  well  to  consider  certain  objections  to  the  line  of 
argument  here  pursued,  the  objections  being  based 
mainly  on  the  "New  Buddhism"  which  has  come  to 
have  a  somewhat  extended  acceptance  since  the  pub- 
lication of  "The  Light  of  Asia."  In  this  work  Mr. 
Arnold  seems  to  have  adopted — unconsciously,  no 
doubt — the  spontaneous  method  of  the  ancient  He- 
brew prophets,  in  so  far  as  he  has  freely  used  detached 
utterances  of  a  noble,  heroic  character  conspicuous  in 
the  early  world,  has  gathered  about  that  ideal  per- 
sonage as  a  nucleus  many  of  the  most  beautiful  char- 
acteristics of  the  sentiment  of  his  own  world,  and 
through  his  own  creative  genius  has  brought  into  or- 
ganic form,  as  the  vital  unity  of  these  materials,  a 
poetic  representation  of  really  marvelous  beauty  and 
power.  One  may  well  reverence  and  even  love  the 
admirable  ideal  he  thus  offers  us. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  it  could  not  but  be  a 
most  serious  error  to  conceal  from  one's  self  the  fact 
that,  beautiful  and  noble  as  this  ideal  is,  it  falls  far 
short  of  being  an  ultimate  ideal.  And  still  more,  if 
it  were  proposed  to  take  this  poetic  creation  as  a  his- 
torical representation  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  the 
Hindu  prince  Siddartha,  one  must  protest  on  the 
ground  that  such  acceptance  necessarily  involves  the 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  133 

complete  abandonment  of  those  critical  methods  of 
investigation  which  so  sharply  distinguish  the  present 
from  any  former  age.  Mr.  Arnold  writes  as  a 
modern  ;  could,  of  course,  by.  no  possibility  write 
otherwise.  He  is  himself  a  conspicuous  example  of 
what  an  individual  may  become  through  the  rich, 
highly  complex  culture  of  the  modern  world.  He 
finds  in  the  ancient  world  a  character  specially 
adapted  to  serve  as  the  central  figure  of  an  artistic 
creation.  He  throws  into  his  creative  work  all  his 
brilliant  power.  And  this  power  itself  is  precisely 
the  inheritance  he  has  received  from  all  the  ages ;  an 
inheritance,  besides,  which  could  have  attained  its 
high  perfection  and  self-critical  delicacy  in  no  other 
way  than  through  the  vastly  complex  influences  rep- 
resented in  a  modern  education,  which  again  is  the 
focus  of  all  the  institutions  which  give  external  form 
to  the  clarified  Reason  of  the  modern  world. 

Neither  should  it  for  a  moment  be  forgotten  that 
Mr.  Arnold  writes  as  a  poet,  not  as  a  historian.  We 
might,  indeed,  as  well  take  Milton's  ''Paradise Lost" 
as  a  historical  document  for  Christianity  as  to  accept 
"The  Light  of  Asia"  as  a  historical  document  for 
Buddhism.  And  besides,  let  us  repeat,  whether  he 
will  or  not,  Mr.  Arnold  necessarily  writes  as  a  modern 
poet,  not  as  an  ancient  one.  Hence  "The  Light  of 
Asia"  is  not  only  a  modern  work,  it  also  represents 
on  the  poetic  side  what  is  essentially  the  modern  and 


134  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

Western  spirit  under  an  antique  and  Oriental  form.^ 
It  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  Buddhism, 
viewed  in  this  camera,  should  present  so  many  start- 
ling analogies  with  the  finest  sentiment  of  Chris- 
tianity !  Indeed,  one  has  but  to  make  careful  analy- 
sis of  the  poem  to  recognize  that  its  real  substance  is 
just  Christianity  itself  ;  only  that  Christianity  is  here 
stripped  of  its  clearness  and  critical  severity,  leaving, 
as  the  residuum,  Christian  sentiment  in  isolation 
from  its  appropriate  clarifying  power  of  thought. 
And  sentiment,  thus  isolated,  cannot  but  be  in  great 
danger  of  passing  over  into  mere  sentimentality. 

Doubtless  strong  natures  will  always  be  able  easily 
to  preserve  themselves  from  sentimentality,  how- 
ever much  they  may  be  moved  and  expanded  by  true 
sentiment.  But  for  weaker  natures  the  danger  can- 
not but  be  real  and  great.  Even  in  its  modernized 
and  most  attractive  form,  then.  Buddhism  still  pre- 
sents this  fundamental  defect  (already  indicated  on  a 
former  page) — that  it  fails  to  seize  the  essential  char- 
acteristics of  spiritual  being.  It  shows  no  clear  rec- 
ognition of  the  necessity  of  the  development  of  re- 
flective, critical  thought  as  a  necessary  phase  of  a 
genuine  concrete  will.  Thus  in  its  whole  history  we 
find  no  scientific  movements  accompanying  its  devel- 


^Since  this  essay  was  first  published,  Mr.  Arnold  has  given 
proof  of  what  he  could — and  could  not — do  in  dealing  as  a 
poet  with  that  greater  theme:    The  Light  of  the  World. 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  135 

opment,  no  spontaneous  growth  of  a  system  of  thought 
as  expressing  an  inner  necessit}"  of  objective,  logical 
utterance.  All  is  vague.  The  face  of  Buddhism  is 
turned  steadfastly  toward  the  ?^;2Utterable — toward 
"Nirvana,"  the  meaning  of  which  no  one  has  yet 
been  able  to  tell  in  terms  of  positive  import.  And  as 
if  the  unspeakableness  of  Nirvana  were  not  enough, 
the  devout  Buddhist  vaguely  strains  his  imagination 
toward  a  still  more  perfect  state,  which  he  names 
' '  Para-Nirvana. ' '  The  devout  Buddhist  also  deprecates 
any  criticism  or  pretense  of  analysis  on  the  part  of 
the  uninitiated,  and  protests  that  only  the  true 
devotee  can  unfold  the  real  meaning  of  this  subtle 
faith  whose  essence  escapes  the  grasp  of  the  unsanc- 
tified  intelligence.  It  is  fortunate,  therefore,  that  the 
genuine  "Esoteric  Buddhism"  has  at  length  been  re- 
vealed to  waiting  humanity  by  one  who  stands  within 
the  sacred  inclosure,  and  whose  work  has  received 
the  stamp  of  a  third  edition.  On  page  163  of  this 
work  (by  Sinnett)  the  reader  may  find  this  luminous 
statement  :  "And  in  some,  to  us  inconceivable  way, 
the  state  of  Para-Nirvana  is  spoken  of  as  immeas- 
urably higher  than  that  of  Nirvana.  I  do  not  pre- 
tend, myself,  to  attach  any  meaning  to  the  statement, 
but  it  may  serve  to  show^  to  what  a  very  transcendental 
realm   of  thought  the   subject  belongs."^     Whereat 


^It  must  be  confessed  that  this  mode  of  view  is  paralleled 
in  one  of  the  foremost  of  modern  philosophical  works.     Mr. 


136  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

the  profane  mind  is  apt  to  marvel,  and  insensibly  to 
become  lost  in  admiration  of  that  logic  which  is  able 
to  find,  in  the  very  fact  that  no  meaning  whatever 
can  be  gotten  out  of  a  phrase,  perfectly  satisfactory 
ground  for  concluding  that  the  phrase  is,  therefore, 
infinitely  full  of  meaning. 

Now  this  very  vagueness,  this  lack  of  precision  in 
the  body  of  the  doctrine,  this  diffuse  character  of  the 
light  of  Buddhism,  is  the  chief  secret  of  its  easy  adap- 
tation to  the  modes  of  thought  prevalent  in  Asiatic 
countries.  It  has,  no  doubt,  made  "bloodless  con- 
quests," as  is  often  claimed  ;  but  there  seems  little 
difficulty  in  discerning  that  this  is  precisely  because 
its  mild  light  nowhere  presents  a  sharp  focus,  no- 
where a  definite  shadow,  nowhere  an  image  so  clearly 
defined  but  that  it  yields  on  very  slight  pressure,  and 
assumes  a  form  to  suit  the  imagination  of  the  indi- 
vidual, whatever  his  habits  of  mind.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  peaceful  spread  of  Buddhism  has  been  almost 
wholly  among  the  peoples  of  the  Orient,  where  civil 
societ3%  even  in  its  most  extended  monarchies,  still 


Herbert  Spencer  (First  Principles,  p.  109,)  after  asking  the 
question:  "Is  it  not  just  possible  that  there  is  a  mode  of 
being  as  much  transcending  Intelligence  and  Will  as  these 
transcend  mechanical  motion?"  immediately  adds:  "It  is 
true  that  we  are  totally  unable  to  conceive  any  such  higher 
mode  of  being.  But  this  is  not  a  reason  for  questioning  its 
existence;  it  is  rather  the  reverse."  The  inconceivable,  it 
seems,  is  for  that  reason  the  actual.  One  is  tempted  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Unknowable  is  the  only  thing  really  worth 
knowing. 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  137 

remains  in  the  simple  patriarchal  stage.  Thus  not 
only  does  Buddhism  itself  exhibit  the  mildness  of  a 
very  diffuse  spirit ;  its  spread  has  occurred  among 
peoples  who  also  present  very  little  concentration  of 
doctrine  or  thought  in  any  form.  The  faiths  of  the 
Orient  meet  and  mingle  without  shock  or  commotion 
of  any  kind,  just  as  a  number  of  different  gaseous 
bodies  easily  become  diffused  through  the  same  space 
and  occup}'  it  simultaneously  without  mutual  dis- 
turbance. The  more  thoroughly  nebulous  the  bodies 
in  contact,  the  less  must  be  the  resistance  offered  by 
either,  and  such  uneventful  comminglings  follow 
naturall}^  whether  in  the  world  of  matter  or  in  the 
world  of  mind. 

But  again,  it  is  not  so  certain  that  the  conquests  of 
Buddhism  were  absolutely  "bloodless  "  The  sculp- 
tures at  Sanchi  (described  and  reproduced  in  photo- 
graph in  Fergusson's  "Tree  and  Serpent  Worship") 
would  seem  to  prove  that  in  India,  at  least,  either 
the  progress  or  the  defense  of  Buddhism  involved  ex- 
tensive wars,  and  that  battles  were  fought  over  the 
sacred  relics — perhaps  between  rival  sects  of  Budd- 
hists. And  this  occurred  too,  let  us  note,  precisely 
where  Buddhism  attained  its  most  clearly  defined 
historical  development,  and,  therefore,  where  we 
would  expect  opposition  to  call  forth  the  spirit  of 
bitter  rivalry  and  intolerance. 

On  the  other  hand,  if,  as  has  been  objected,  Chris- 


138  BUDDHISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

tianity  has  given  rise  to  endless  wars,  there  are  two 
manifest  and  valid  reasons  for  the  fact.  The  first  is 
the  precision  and  extreme  complexity  of  the  funda- 
mental conceptions  of  that  faith  ;  the  complexity,  on 
the  one  hand,  rendering  inevitable  awide  divergence 
in  the  interpretation  of  doctrine,  while  on  the  other 
hand,  the  precision  of  those  conceptions  must  render 
peaceable  divergence  impossible  save  within  vety 
narrow  range.  In  such  case,  indeed,  "it  must  needs 
be  that  offenses  come,"  and  it  is  equally  inevitable 
that  woes  should  be  multiplied  upon  those  by  whom 
they  come.  Doubtless  Christianity  does  in  a  literal 
sense  bring  a  sword  rather  than  peace.  But  this  is 
because  it  insists  with  infinite  emphasis  that  truth  is 
absolutely  unchanging,  and  that  the  individual  must, 
therefore,  adjust  himself  to  the  truth  and  not  expect 
to  adjust  the  truth  to  himself. 

Note,  however,  as  the  second  reason  why  wars 
have  so  prevailed  in  Christian  lands,  that  the  literal 
sword  is,  after  all,  introduced  by  the  imperfectly 
Christianized  man.  Not  because  he  is  a  Christian 
truly,  but  because  he  is  a  Christian  only  formally, 
and  f  ils  to  comprehend  the  deeper  significance  of  the 
faith,  does  he  become  impatient  and  rush  to  battle.  It 
is  the  imperfection  of  men  that  gives  rise  to  one- 
sided interpretations  of  the  truth,  the  end  whereof  is 
conflict  ;  and  the  conflict  is  and  can  be  only  the  more 
relentless  as,  on  the  one  hand,  the  individual  fails  to 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  l39 

suspect  his  own  one-sidedness,  and  as,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  absolute  necessity  of  understanding  the 
truth  aright  is  insisted  upon . 

With  man's  higher  development,  with  his  increas- 
ingly adequate  comprehension  of  the  gospel  of  peace^ 
he  learns  at  length  that  the  sword  which  Christianity 
does  in  truth  bring  into  the  world  in  a  new  and 
special  sense  is  the  "Sword  of  the  Spirit,"  the  keen- 
pointed,  keen-edged  weapon  of  Reason,  the  first  vic- 
tory achieved  with  which  is  the  victory  over  self  on 
the  part  of  the  individual. 

Again,  Christianity  has  ever  found  its  most  con- 
genial field  in  that  part  of  the  world  where  all  has 
from  the  first  tended  toward  concentration,  toward 
increase  of  tension,  toward  multiplied  complexity. 
So  that  not  only  has  this  faith  constantly  presented 
its  highly  complex  doctrines  in  specially  distinct 
forms  ;  it  has  also  at  every  turn  come  in  contact  with 
a  spirit  already  characterized  by  extreme  tension  and 
complexity. 

From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  there''ore,  antag- 
onisms more  or  less  violent  were  inevitable  in  the 
spread  of  Christianity  ;  and  especially  during  the 
ages  in  which  the  peoples  brought  under  its  influ- 
ence were  yet  rude  and  violent,  and  only  very  im- 
perfectly imbued  with  the  teachings  of  the  new  faith; 

But  it  has  been  often  suggested  that  what  are  re- 
garded as  the  results  of  Christianity  are  really  due  to 


140  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

the  innate  spirit  of  the  peoples  classed  as  Christian 
And  in  a  very  important  sense  this  must  be  admitted 
to  be  true.  The  sublime  ideal  of  Christianity  could 
of  course  never  be  realized  otherwise  than  through 
the  actual  spirit  of  a  given  particular  people.  And 
the  spirit  of  that  people  must  be  of  such  type  as  to 
discern  spontaneously  that  its  true  development  can 
take  place  only  as  the  working  out  into  realized 
form  of  precisely  the  ideal  which  Christianity  pre- 
sents. So,  too,  the  various  divisions  of  such  people 
will  cling  to  the  peculiar  conception  which  they  sev- 
erally form  of  that  ideal  only  the  more  tenaciouslj'-  as 
they  are  the  more  firmly  convinced  that  it  is,  in  the 
final  outcome,  just  their  own  Ideal.  Thus  the  people 
of  Europe  and  America,  through  their  thorough 
adoption  of  and  steadfast  adhesion  to  Christianity, 
have  given  demonstrative  practical  proof  that  the 
real  spirit  of  that  faith  is  identical  with  the  spirit  of 
the  highest  enlightenment. 

If  attempts  to  christianize  barbarous  races  have 
thus  far  in  great  measure  failed^  it  seems  but  reas- 
onable to  recognize  the  fact  that  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  human  mind  it  is  impossible  that  individuals 
should  pass  with  a  single  bound  from  a  very  low  to  a 
very  high  stage  of  culture.  The  individual  must  of 
necessity  pass  through  all  the  intermediate  stages 
from  the  beginning  onward,  and  must  occupy  a  reas- 
onable time  in  so  doing.     It  is  well  that  barbarous 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  141 

races  should  become  civilized,  just  as  it  is  well  that  a 
child  should  become  a  man.  But  it  seems  better  in 
either  case  that  time  should  be  allowed  for  natural, 
healthy  growth,  rather  than  that  attempts  should  be 
made  to  at  once  violently  stretch  the  child  into  the 
dimensions  of  a  man. 

Christianity  is,  beyond  question,  an  intolerant 
faith  ;  and  most  of  "all  is  it  intolerant  as  against  the 
ferocity  of  mere  blind  intolerance  ;  just  as,  in  its 
character  of  the  religion  of  Reason,  it  must  ever  re- 
pudiate the  equally  blind  tolerance  which,  through 
mere  complaisance,  permits  all  opinions  alike  to  pass 
unchallenged. 

X. 

Nor  would  we  by  any  means  ignore  the  supposed 

r 

conflict  between  religion  and  science,  of  which  so 
much  is  heard  in  recent  times.  This  "conflict,"  in- 
deed, is  simply  a  misconception  growing  out  of  arro- 
gance on  the  one  side  and  timidity  on  the  other.  It 
is  boldly  assumed  on  the  one  hand,  and  admitted 
without  due  reflection  on  the  other,  that  the  Christian 
church  is  identical  with  the  Christian  religion. 
True,  the  church  is  the  outward,  organic  form  of 
which  religion  is  the  inward,  vital  substance.  They 
are  inseparable.  At  the  same  time,  while  the  real 
substance,  the  ultimate  truth,  of  the  religion  of  the 
Spirit   is  unchanging,  the  church  is  manifestly  but 


142  BUDDHISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  external,  the  growing,  changing  form  which  the 
substance  necessarily  takes  on  through  the  activity 
of  man.  And  the  adequacy  of  the  form  must  depend 
upon  the  thoroughness  of  man's  appreciation  of  the 
substance.  The  more  enlightened  human  intelli- 
gence becomes,  the  more  adequate  man's  view  of  his 
own  nature  and  of  his  relation  to  the  divine  nature, 
the  more  imperatively  is  there  demanded  a  contin- 
uous revision  and  extension  of  the  forms  which  give 
utterance  to  his  view  ;  a  necessity  which,  we  have 
already  seen,  makes  its  appearance  in  the  world  of 
political  institutions  as  well.  It  is  absurd  to  charge 
to  a  religion  the  revolting  results  of  the  bigotry  of 
men  who  w/^represent  the  religion,  even  while  claim- 
ing to  be  its  votaries. 

And  yet  it  has  always  proved  specially  difficult  to 
see  that  a  mode  of  utterance  which  has  proved  ade- 
quate to  the  expression  of  a  given  view  of  the  truth 
is  not  therefore  necessarily  adequate  to  the  expres- 
sion of  the  whole  truth.  Hence  forms  once  estab- 
lished have  ever  been  tenaciously  adhered  to  ;  and, 
not  infrequently,  to  the  hindrance  of  further  advance 
in  the  compiehension  of  the  truth. 

Nevertheless,  this  dogmatic  tendency  is  not  ex- 
clusively hurtful.  Dogmatism,  in  truth,  is  just  the 
conservative,  as  skepticism  is  the  radical,  element  in 
human  thought.  Both  are  necessary,  for  they  are 
but  complimentary  phases  of  all    rational   activity. 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  143 

Either  becomes  hurtful  only  when  made  to  exclude 
the  other.  Give  dogmatism  the  ascendency,  and  it 
reduces  everything  to  mere  dead  forms.  Give  skep- 
ticism the  ascendency,  and  it  denies  the  existence  of 
any  fixed  standard,  and  grows  maudlin  in  the  pro- 
duction of  change  merely  for  the  sake  of  change. 
The  doctrine  of  papal  infallibility  is  the  logical  out- 
come of  dogmatism  ;  the  Reign  of  Terror  shows  what 
mere  skepticism  is  capable  of  accomplishing.  But 
the  true  spirit  of  Christianity  proves  its  completeness 
by  demanding  that  these  two  opposites  shall  be  con- 
stantly blended — fused  into  inseparable  unity. 

On  approaching  any  phase  of  activity  that  may  be 
proposed,  but  which  for  him  remains  as  yet  untried, 
the  individual,  if  he  is  to  exhibit  the  genuine  spirit 
of  Christianity,  must  first  assume  the  skeptical  or 
critical  attitude  and  put  to  the  proof  the  thing  pro- 
posed. And  yet  this  very  process  necessarily  in- 
volves the  conservative  element,  since  the  "proving" 
means  nothing  else  than  the  critical  reference  of  the 
thing  undergoing  trial  to  some  standard  already  ac- 
cepted as  fixed.  And  once  tried  and  found  sufficient, 
the  new  fact  or  phase  of  activity  comes  to  be  dog- 
matically accepted  and  held  fast  among  the  things 
known  to  be  good. 

Such  is  the  process  constantly  going  forward  in 
every  genuinely  free  spirit.  It  is,  in  truth,  the  very 
soul  of  the  thoroughly  scientific  spirit.     So  that  once 


144  BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

more  the  "conflict"  is  not  between  the  Christian  re- 
ligion and  science  ;  but  between  narrow,  dogmatic 
theologians  on  the  one  side  and  equally  narrow  skep- 
tical scientists  on  the  other. 

Note,  too,  that  the  theologian  is  sometimes  flip- 
pantly skeptical  in  that  he  rejects  without  exami- 
nation the  richest  results  of  science ;  while  the  scien- 
tist is  often  no  less  narrowly  dogmatic  in  that  he  as- 
sumes without  proof  that  his  is  the  only  field  in  which 
"positive"  results  can  be  attained. 

This,  then,  is  the  result  of  our  investigation  :  That 
Buddhism,  as  based  on  superstition  and  finding  ac- 
ceptance only  among  people  destitute  of  science  and 
therefore  wholly  involved  in  superstition,  can  be  per- 
petuated as  a  dominant  faith  only  where,  and  so  long 
as,  scientific  habits  of  thought  fail  to  penetrate  ; 
while  Christianity,  as  the  religion  of  Reason,  and  as 
therefore  involving  within  itself  the  very  soul  of  true 
scientific  method,  is  not  merely  aided  by  but  is  also 
itself  in  reality  a  mighty  aid  to  the  advance  of  science, 
in  the  widest  and  most  genuine  significance  of  the 
term.  It  teaches  man  to  value  himself  as  a  being 
possessed  of  infinite  capabilities,  and  thus  awakes 
within  him  an  infinite  longing  to  comprehend — that 
is,  to  know  scientifically — his  own  nature,  and  also 
the  world  in  the  midst  of  which  his  own  development 
must  take  place. 

It  thus,  from  its  very  constitution,  shows  itself  to  be 


BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY.  14 

the  predestined  final  Religion  of  the  World,  lis  forms  ^ 
as  we  have  seen,  may,  and  must,  change  ;  but  this 
only  proves  the  exhaustless  vigor  of  the  inner  sub- 
stance— as  the  shedding  of  outworn  leaves  but  proves 
the  forest  to  be  preparing  for  a  larger  growth. 


IV. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  MOHAMMEDANISM. 


The  relations  between  Christianit}^  and  Moham- 
medanism have  been  of  a  nature  quite  unique  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Both  had  their  origin  with  the 
Semitic  race.  In  the  fiml  outcome  both  have  found 
their  strength  mainly  among  non-Semitic  peoples. 
Each  is  in  some  degree  a  reaction  upon  and  an  exten- 
sion of  the  Jewish  religion.  Each  aspires  to  the  rank 
of  an  exclusive  world-religion.  They  have  struggled 
with  each  other  for  mastery  with  fire  and  sword. 
They  have  also  done  battle  with  the  weapons  alike  of 
prophecy  and  of  logical  deduction.  The  antagonism 
has  been  both  external  and  internal,  and  in  both  re- 
spects it  has  been  relentless. 

It  seems  well  worth  while,  then,  to  ask  these  two 
questions,  namely  :  What  is  the  central  element  of 
vitality  in  each  ?  What  is  the  ultimate  promise  of 
growth  in  each  ? 

These  are  but  the  complementary  aspects  of  one 
and  the  same  question — the  deeply  interesting  ques- 
tion suggested  by  the  history  of  these  two  religions. 
The  question  is  this  :  What  religion  answers  best  the 
essential  needs  of  the  human  soul  ?     To  this  question 


CHRISTIANITY   AND   MOHAMMEDANISM.  147 

it  is  proposed  in  the  present  essay  to  seek   a    reas- 
onable answer. 

I. 

And  first  as  to  their  respective  origins.  Chris- 
tianity in  its  immediate  inception  was  but  the  cul- 
mination of  that  long  period  of  inner  struggle  on  the 
part  of  the  People  of  Israel  to  discover  the  true  na- 
ture of  God  and  to  learn  the  precise  actual  relation- 
ship between  God  and  man.  However  much  may  be 
wanting  in  precise  historical  details,  this  much  is 
fairly  certain  :  That  the  inmost  aspirations  by  which 
an  entire  nation  had  been  guided  for  fifteen  hundred 
years,  found  their  logical  culmination  in  the  per- 
sonality of  the  founder  of  the  Christian  Religion. 

Leaving  out  of  account  all  questions  of  the  "mirac- 
ulous"— a  term  which  defies  scientific  definition,  and 
which  therefore  must  be  omitted  from  any  strictly 
historical  investigation — it  is  evident  that  the  per- 
sonality of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  a  unique  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  And  the  explanation  of  this 
fact  is  to  be  found  in  the  long  struggle  (to  which  ref- 
erence has  just  been  made),  of  the  most  intensely  re- 
ligious people  the  world  has  ever  known. 

Starting  from  the  Mosaic  conception  of  a  national 
divinity,  the  People  of  Israel  sought,  with  ever- 
growing earnestness,  for  a  true  knowledge  of  God. 
And  however  much  and  however  often  the  body  of 


148  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  nation  wandered  from  the  essential  aim,  however 
far  they  misapprehended  the  essential  character  of 
that  aim,  yet  the  men  of  real  genius  which  the  nation 
from  time  to  time  produced  were  ever  found  bending 
all  their  energies  to  the  better  apprehension,  and 
thus  approximating  ever  toward  the  final  solution,  of 
the  one  great  problem  by  which  their  minds  were 
wholly  and  always  occupied. 

And  yet,  even  in  later  times,  these  exceptional 
minds  were  never  quite  able  to  free  themselves  from 
the  limitations  of  the  traditional  view  in  accordance 
with  which  the  final  theophany — the  ultimate  reve- 
lation of  God  to  man — was  to  be  in  the  character  of  a 
divine  Ruler,  who  was  to  establish  an  ideal  Theoc- 
racy with  its  capital  at  Jerusalem,  and  who  was  to 
make  use  of  the  Jews  themselves  as  his  favorite 
agents.  It  was  this  "Messianic  hope"  that  sustained 
the  Jews  in  their  latest  and  most  crushing  reverses. 
And  yet  the  strain  of  mind  due  to  the  sense  of  irrec- 
oncilable contradiction  between  the  promises  of  their 
God  and  their  own  actual  state  of  humiliation  at  the 
time  of  the  Roman  conquest  of  Judaea  became  fairly 
insupportable. 

God  was  to  have  come.  A  Caesar  is  here  !  Jerusa- 
lem was  to  have  been  the  capitol  of  the  world.  A 
Roman  legion  desecrates  the  very  courts  of  the 
Temple.  The  enemies  of  Jehovah  were  to  have 
been   brought   hither    to    answer   for   their   offenses 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  149 

against  the  Chosen  People.  Those  enemies  have 
come  of  their  own  accord  and  with  irresistible  might 
to  crush  out  the  last  remnant  of  the  true  believers 
and  to  flaunt  insults  in  the  face  of  the  Most  High  ! 
Never  was  there  such  intimate  intermingling  of  un- 
conquerable hope  with  the  deepest  despair  !  That 
the  promise  was  sure  they  could  not  for  a  moment 
doubt.  That  its  fulfilment  was  infinitely  deferred 
who  would  dare  to  deny  ?  No  wonder  that  there 
should  be  wild  outbreaks  of  fanaticism  and  multiplied 
cases  of  insanity  ! 

And  yet  the  problem  was  by  no  means  an  im- 
possible one.  It  was  only  of  a  vastly  deeper  import 
than  had  yet  been  more  than  faintly  dreamed  of. 
But  just  this  vague  premonition  it  was  that  sustained 
hope  in  the  midst  of  conditions  that  must  otherwise 
have  rendered  all  pretense  of  hope  the  veriest 
mockery. 

Only  he  who  had  inherited  the  divinest  qualities  of 
his  race  could  seize  that  deeper  and  deepest  import  of 
the  great  problem  and  find  for  it  true  answer.  Only 
at  the  moment  when  excitement  ran  highest,  only 
when  all  minds  were  turned  with  all-absorbing  in- 
terest upon  that  problem  could  he  have  been  stimu- 
lated to  the  fervor  of  inquiry  needful  even  for  him  to 
seize  and  form  the  ultimate  solution. 

It  was  in  this  sense  that  he  came  "in  the  fullness 
of  time."     Devoting   all  his  exceptional  powers   to 


150  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  solution  of  the  question  in  which  the  destinies  of 
the  whole  human  race  are  involved,  he  is  indeed  the 
Son  of  Man.  Finding  the  solution  of  the  question  in 
the  fact  that  God  is  the  Father  of  every  human 
being,  he  may  well  be  looked  upon  as  being  himself 
preeminently  the  Son  of  God. 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  origins  of  Mohammedanism 
we  find  here  also  a  remarkable  combination  of  cir- 
cumstances. And  these  circumstances  are  very  widely 
contrasted  with  that  total  sum  of  conditions  which 
became  focused  into  the  germ  of  what  the  world  has 
come  to  know  as  Christianity. 

Unlike  the  People  of  Israel,  the  Arabs  were  of  a 
serene  and  even  joyous  temperament.  A  race  of  rare 
vigor,  cares  nevertheless  sat  lightly  upon  them.  And 
the  great  problem  which  so  burned  in  the  soul  of  the 
Jew  scarcely  stirred  the  thought  of  the  free  rover  of 
the  desert. 

Distinguished  by  a  wild  grace  of  body  and  of  mind 
these  bold  Ishmaelites  were  poets  from  birth.  But 
instead  of  Davidic  psalms  their  unwritten  songs  were 
the  intermingling  of  soft  strains  of  love  with  the 
fierce  chanting  of  ideal  deeds  of  battle  done  in  the 
rescue  of  the  loved  one  who  had  been  ruthlessly  borne 
away  by  a  foe.^ 

Such  appears  to  have  been  the  well-nigh  unvarying 


'Cp.  Emanuel  Deutsch.  Literary  Remaius,  p.  452. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  151 

character   of   ancient   Arabic   literature,  which     was 

never  written  and  which  was  "all  in  verse."     Nay, 

"in    the   vast   repertory    of   ante-Islamic    poetry    we 

hardly  find  a  religious  thought."^ 

Surely  no  greater  contrast  could  well  be  conceived 

than  that  between  the  all-absorbing  religious  instinct 

of    the   worshipers   of  Jehovah    and   the    care-free, 

sensuous  spirit  of  the  Arabs.     With  their  high  ideal 

working    irresistibly,    even    in   their   early     history, 

toward  ever  clearer  utterance  the  Sons  of  Israel  found 

life  in  the  desert  intolerable.     Arid  nature  can  never 
give  birth  to  richly  fruitful  souls.     Only  in  a  "land 

flowing   with    milk    and   honey"    can    the     highest 
grades  of  spiritual  perfection' be  attained. 

x\enan  has,  indeed,  urged  that  the  abstractness  of 
the  desert  was  a  primary  condition  for  the  unfolding 
of  the  sublime  conception  of  monotheism.  Doubt- 
less, in  a  measure,  this  is  true.  But  the  truth  of 
monotheism  is  an  infinitely  rich,  concrete  truth  ; 
while  the  very  abstractness  of  the  desert,  though  it 
might  serve  vaguely  to  suggest  the  conception  of 
monotheism  in  its  most  rudimentary  form,  yet  pre- 
sents no  stimulus  to  the  further  unfolding  of  such 
idea.  On  the  contrary,  as  Hegel  has  remarked  of  the 
Arabs  in  respect  of  the  origin  of  Islam  :  "Here  the 
spirit  is  altogether  rudimentary  (^ein  gayiz  einfacher), 


^Renan.     Studies  of  Religious  Histoty  and  Criticism.      N. 
Y.  Ed.,  1864,  p.  238. 


152  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

and  the  sense  of  the  Formless  is  quite  at  home.  For 
in  these  deserts  there  is  nothing  which  can  be  given 
clear  definition."^  In  short  the  desert  is  the  con- 
dition within  which  the  human  spirit  is  forever  de- 
barred from  advancing  beyond  the  elementary  as- 
pects of  its  own  development. 

It  is  precisely  this  abstract  character  on  the  part  of 
a  people  like  the  Arabs  that  for  so  many  centuries 
could  find  full  satisfaction  in  love  of  war  and  wars  of 
love.  And  it  is  precisely  these  two  aspects  of  char- 
acter— latent  ferocity  and  sensuality — which,  once 
brought  into  the  service  of  a  motive  alike  sublime 
and  sensuously  mystical,  will  bloom  out  swiftly  into 
fiercest  fanaticism. 

Here,  too,  the  waiting  for  a  culmination  extends 
through  a  period  of  fifteen  hundred  years  ;  though  in 
this  case  the  waiting  was  unconscious.  That  is,  it 
was  destitute  of  any  deep  sense  of  contradiction  and 
consequent  necessity  of  struggle. 

During  all  that  stretch  of  time,  indeed,  this  people 
remained  free  even  from  the  disquieting  element  of 
historical  premonitions.  Careless  alike  of  the  past 
and  of  the  future,  they  lived  in  the  present,  never 
doubting  that  sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  joy 
thereof.  And  when  at  length  they  did  awake  to  a 
consciousness  of  that  sublime  and    mystical    motive 


^Werke,  3te  Auflage.     IX,  433. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  153 

that  was  to  send  them  like  a  whirlwind  into  the  field 
of  historical  activity,  it  was  yet  from  a  foreign  source 
that  the  stimulus  was  received. 

It  is  beyond  question  that  in  the  "Great  Dis- 
persion" many  of  the  Jews  had  found  a  permanent 
home  in  the  northern  part  of  Arabia  long  before  the 
birth  of  Mohammed.  And  wherever  they  went 
something  of  the  influence  of  their  faith  must  have 
been  felt.  This  is  so  much  the  more  probable,  too, 
as  they  were  the  "people  of  a  book,"  and  were  there- 
fore looked  up  to  as  superiors  by  the  untutored 
Arabs. 

But  it  is  also  true  that  Christianity  had  been 
spreading  Eastward  as  well  as  Westward  during  the 
six  centuries  preceding  the  rise  of  Islam.  And 
always  the  adherents  of  this  faith  have  been  more  or 
less  actuated  by  the  spirit  of  proselytism. 

Could  their  presence  have  been  wholly  without 
effect  ?  According  to  a  Jew  of  great  learning,  as  well 
as  of  brilliant  powers  of  exposition,  and  whose  pre- 
mature death  a  few  years  since  was  a  severe  loss  to 
scholarship  in  this  field,  "It  has  long  been  the 
fashion  to  ascribe  whatever  was  'good'  in  Moham- 
medanism to  Christianity.  We  fear  this  theory  is  not 
compatible  with  the  results  of  honest  investigation. 
For  of  Arabian  Christianity  at  the  time  of  Mohammed, 
the  less  said,  perhaps,  the  better."^    Elsewhere  the 


^Emanuel  Deutsch      Literary  Remains,     p.  87. 


154  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

same  writer  makes  this  claim  :  "But  we  think  Islam 
neither  more  nor  less  than  Judaism  as  adapted  to 
Arabia — plus  the  apostleship  of  Jesus  and  Moham- 
med."' 

These  statements,  when  compared  with  those  of 
other  competent  scholars,  would  seem  to  be  a  little 
tinged,  though  of  course  unconsciousl}^  with  the 
pride  of  race.  And  yet,  as  Renan  remarks,  "pos- 
sessing a  law,  a  book,  the  depository  of  grand  moral 
precepts  and  of  an  elevated  religious  poetr}^  Judaism 
had  an  incontestable  superiority  [to  other  religions  of 
the  ancient  world] ,  and  it  might  have  been  foreseen 
that  some  day  the  world  would  become  Jewish  ;  that 
is  to  say,  would  forsake  the  old  mythology  for 
monotheism."'  Further  on,  however,  he  adds  :^ 
"Hesitating  between  Judaism  and  Christianity,  na- 
tive superstitions  and  the  remembrance  of  the  old 
patriarchal  faith,  recoiling  from  the  mythological  ele- 
ments which  the  Indo-European  race  had  introduced 
into  the  heart  of  Christianity,  Arabia  wished  to  return 
to  the  religion  of  Abraham  ;  she  founded  Islamism." 

Soberly  examining  this  statement,  one  can  scarcely 
fail  to  pronounce  it  misleading  in  so  far  as  it  at- 
tributes solely  or  even  mainly  to  Aryan  influence  the 
mythological    elements   contained    in    that    form    of 


^Studies  of  Religious  Hist.,  etc.     p.  i6o. 
-Op.  cit.    p.  64. 
"'Op.  cit.    p.  162. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  155 

Christianity  known  to  the  Arabs.  Such  elements 
appear  to  have  been  chiefly  due  rather  to  Semitic  and 
Egyptian,  or  even  to  Abyssinian  influences.  But 
apart  from  this,  which  for  the  present  purpose  is 
merely  incidental,  Renan's  statement  contains  a  clew 
to  the  historical  fact  in  the  case  as  presented  by  the 
scholar  who  has  doubtless  done  more  than  any  one 
else— perhaps  more  than  all  others  combined — to 
render  Mohammedanism  intelligible  as  an  actual 
movement  in  the  spiritual  evolution  of  the  human 
race.  His  investigations  of  the  subject  from  original 
sources  during  many  years  of  residence  in  Arabia^ 
go  to  show  that  when  Mohammed  appeared  some- 
thing of  a  religious  ferment  had  already  long  been  in 
progress  among  the  Arabians. 

We  have,  indeed,  only  to  bear  in  mind  the  actual 
movements  of  the  time  to  see  how  much  of  inherent 
probability  there  is  in  the  conception  that  strong  in- 
fusion of  both  Jewish  and  Christian  tenets  into  the 
simple  faith  of  the  Arabs  must  have  taken  place 
during  the  first  six  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  along  with  the  exten- 
sion of  the  Graeco-Roman  Empire  to  the  East,  must  of 
themselves — to  say  nothing  of  voluntary  propaganda — 
have   resulted    in    an  important  transfusion    of  both 


^A.  Sprenger.  Das  Leben  und  die  Lehre  des  Mohammad, 
nach  bisher  groesstentheils  unbenutzten  Quellen  bearbeitet. 
2te  Ausgabe,     3  Bde.  Berlin,  1869. 


156  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

Jewish  and  Christian  ideas  into  the  minds  of  these 
children  of  the  desert,  however  slow  and  indefinable 
the  process  might  be. 

But  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  process.  The 
actual  propagation  of  Jewish  and  Christian  concep- 
tions among  people  with  such  widely  different  habits 
of  mind  could  take  place  only  through  those  concep- 
tions themselves  becoming  adapted  to  the  minds 
having  such  peculiar  habits  and  instincts. 

Nor  should  the  reaction  to  this  action  be  over- 
looked. For  evidently  the  very  Jews  and  Christians 
themselves  could  not  remain  altogether  uninfluenced 
by  prolonged  contact  with  mental  processes  so  unlike 
their  own. 

Still  further  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  law  of  nat- 
ural selection  inheres  in  the  spiritual  no  less  than  in 
the  physical  world.  And  according  to  this  law  it  is 
evident  that  among  both  Jews  and  Christians  those 
whose  mental  tendency  was  toward  precise,  scien- 
tific modes  of  investigation  would  inevitably  be 
drawn  westward  into  the  countries  where  Greek  and 
Roman  influences  were  still  preserved  in  their  most 
vital  form  ;  while  those  of  a  mystical,  uncritical  ten- 
dency would  gravitate  ever  further  into  oriental  lands 
where  glowing  phantasy  was  in  no  danger  of  coming 
into  contact  with  the  ice-bergs  of  reflective  criticism. 

Thus  we  might  even  easily  anticipate,  what 
Sprenger  shows  to  be  the  historical  fact  in  the  case, 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  157 

that  there  developed  an  "amphibious  population 
which  occupied  the  intermediate  region  between  the 
denizens  of  the  desert  and  those  of  the  town  ;"  and 
that  among  these  there  were  **a  number  of  mono- 
theistic sects  and  brotherhoods  which  differed  among 
themselves  more  or  less  in  respect  of  what  they  re- 
tained of  Judaism  or  of  Christianity."^ 

It  is  beyond  question,  then,  that  neither  Judaism 
nor  Christianity  presented  itself  in  its  pure  form  to 
the  Arabians.  Though  here  too  we  ought  not  to 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  Jewish  Scriptures  were 
the  matured  expression  of  a  distinctly  national  spirit ; 
while  Christianity  was  a  form  of  faith  which,  com- 
pared with  the  Jewish,  was  even  yet  not  perfectly  de- 
fined— which  in  its  oriental  development  had,  in 
fact,  exchanged  primitive  simplicity  for  extravagant 
caricature — and  which,  nevertheless,  everywhere 
and  finally  assumed  the  attitude  of  a  world-religion, 
having  no  specific  relation,  save  in  point  of  historical 
genesis,  to  any  particular  national  spirit 

And  yet,  precisely  for  this  reason,  Christianit3r 
possessed  a  flexibility  by  which  it  became  "all  things 
to  all  men  ;"  and  this  (as  we  have  just  seen),  to  the 
extent  of  sinking,  among  the  crude  peoples  of  the 
Orient,  into  a  mere  caricature  of  the  original  teach- 
ings  of   its    Founder.     So  that,  if   we  compare   the 


^Op.  cit.    I,  40. 


158  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

Christianity  of  Arabia  with  the  Christianity  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  especially  as  developed  in  the 
modern  spirit,  it  is  no  doubt  true  that  "the  less  said 
of  it  [save  in  historical  criticism],  the  better." 

It  is  these  caricatured  forms  of  Christianity  alone, 
indeed,  of  which  the  Arabs  of  the  time  of  Mohammed 
could  have  had  any  knowledge  whatever.  But  if  we 
are  to  form  a  reasonable  judgment  of  the  possible  or 
probable  influence  which  such  forms  may  have  had 
upon  the  Arabs  of  the  pre-Islamic  period,  we  must 
compare  the  "Arabic  Christianity"  of  that  period 
with  the  still  cruder  and  less  adequate  religion  of  the 
,  Arabs  themselves,  consisting  chiefly,  as  it  would 
seem,  of  various  forms  of  nature-worship  and  per- 
haps also  of  hero-worship.  When  this  comparison  is 
made  it  appears  by  no  means  improbable  that  the 
Arabs  may  have  received,  even  from  such  grotesque 
caricatures  of  Christianity  as  were  known  to  them,  a 
genuine  and  important  stimulus  toward  the  adoption 
of  a  monotheistic  form  of  faith. 

Nevertheless  the  actual  information  is  extremel}^ 
vague  ;  and  hence  the  statement  seems  fairly  justified 
that,  as  expressed  by  Emanuel  Deutsch  :^  "We  can 
but  guess  at  the  state  of  Arab  belief  and  worship  be- 
fore Mohammed  ;"  though,  as  will  be  seen  presently, 

iQp.  cit.    p.  85. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  159 

Sprenger's  investigations  have  thrown  important 
lights  upon  the  period  otherwise  so  obscure. 

Indeed  Deutsch  himself  has  some  valuable  infor- 
mation to  give  us  respecting  the  pre-Islamic  in- 
fluence of  Judaism  upon  the  religious  tendencies  of 
the  Arabs.  No  doubt  can  reasonabl}^  be  entertained, 
in  fact,  that  this  influence  was  much  stronger  than 
that  exerted  by  Christianity.  The  faith  of  the  Jews 
was  simpler,  their  superiority  in  point  of  learning  se- 
cured the  respect  of  the  Arabs, ^  they  appear  to  have 
spread  more  widely  through  the  peninsula,"  and, 
finally,  there  was  clear  consciousness  of  race  kinship, 
which  doubtless  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  did  not 
fail  to  strengthen  by  making  known  the  details  of 
their  common  ancestry  as  set  forth  in  their  own 
sacred  books. 

Nay,  as  Deutsch  insists,  "we  cannot  shut  our  eyes 
to  the  fact  that  Jews,  'worshippers  of  the  invisible 
God  of  Abraham,'  existed,  though  in  small  num- 
bers in  Arabia,  at  a  very  primitive  period  indeed. " 
^We  are  further  assured  by  the  same  writer  that  "the 
Talmud  shows  a  rather  unexpected  familiarity  with 
Arab  manners  and  customs."  And  if  we  may  follow 
the  same  learned  author  a  step  further,  it  is  precisely 


^"The  Jews,  in   fact,  represented  the  cuhure  of  Arabia." 
Deutsch.     Op.  cit..      p.  91. 

-Loc.  cit. 

'Op.  cit..    p.  89. 


160  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

in  the  Talmud  we  are  to  look  for  the  source  of  Islam  ; 
though  we  are  not  to  take  this  as  implying  "that 
Mohammed  knew  it,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  had 
ever  heard  its  very  name  ;  but  it  seems  as  if  he  had 
breathed  from  his  childhood  almost  the  air  of  con- 
temporary Judaism,  such  Judaism  as  is  found  by  us 
crystalized  in  the  Talmud,  the  Targum,  theMidrash." 

If  now  we  recur  to  the  remark  already  quoted  from 
Renan  to  the  effect  that  Arabia  hesitated  between 
Judaism  and  Christianity,  that  at  length  she  formed 
the  wish  to  return  to  the  religion  of  Abraham,  and  in 
this  spiritual  struggle  she  in  fact  founded  Islamism, 
we  may  see  that  the  two  religions  then  existing  which 
taught  that  there  is  but  one  God,  reall}^  furnished  each 
its  own  element  towards  the  mental  ferment  leading 
up  to  the  Koran  and  Islamism. 

And  that  the  element  furnished  by  Christianity, 
however  distorted  the  form  in  which  it  there  ap- 
peared, and  whether  coming  from  Abyssinia  or  else- 
where, was  really  of  much  weight,  especially  in 
shaping  and  extending  Mohammed's  own  personal 
convictions,  is  put  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt  by 
Sprenger,  partly  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  Life  of 
Mohammad,^  in  which  he  shows  the  evidences  of 
Christian  activity  in  the  pre-Islamic  period,  and 
again  in  the  eleventh  chapter,  which  is  devoted  to 


iWherever  quoting   from   Sprenger   I    have   retained   his 
spelling:   "Mohammad." 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  161 

the   subject  of  **  Christian  influences  upon    Moham- 
mad" himself,  especially  during  the  years  616-619. 

But  yet  another  fact  is  of  special  significance  in 
this  connection  as  indicating  that  the  ferment  occa- 
sioned by  the  gradual  diffusion  of  both  Jewish  and 
(pseudo)-Christian  teachings  proved  the  more  readily 
and  at  length  the  more  thoroughly  effective,  because 
in  germ  the  conception  of  monotheism  was  already 
present  in  the  minds  of  the  Arabs-  This  is  shown,' 
for  example,  in  an  old  legend  made  use  of  in  the 
Koran  (37,  103).  According  to  this  legend,  when 
Abraham  had  prepared  to  sacrifice  his  son  and  the 
latter  had  consented  to  be  offered,  both  on  the  moment 
determined  to  become  Moslems.  ^ 

Now  "the  antiquity  of  this  legend,"  as  Sprenger 
observes,  "shows  that  submission  to  the  occasionally 
tyrannical  and  irrational  will  of  Allah  was  at  all 
times  among  the  Semites  an  important  part  of  their 
practical  religion.""  But,  he  adds  immediately,  "All 
ideas  are  old,  and  the  question  arises,  when  did  Islam 
become  the  fundamental  tone  of  religion  and  when 
■did  its  significance  become  so  greatly  extended  ?     For 


^'♦Islam  is  the  verbal  noun  and  Moslem  the  participle  of 
the  root  from  which  also  the  familiar  word  Salam,  health, 
peace,  and  Salem  and  Salym,  sound,  honorable,  are  de- 
rived. Islam,  therefore,  means:  to  render  satisfaction  to  any 
one,  and  indeed  with  deference.  Hence  it  also  means  'sub- 
mission.' "     Sprenger,  I,  69. 

-I.    70. 


162  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

to  Mohammad  Islam  meant,  not  merely  submission 
to  the  will  of  Allah,  but  also  faith  in  him." 

What  is  here  to  be  especially  noticed  is  the  fact 
that  Islam,  this  "chief  doctrine  of  Mohammad,"  was 
preached  before  his  time  ;  though,  as  it  seems,  only 
with  its  more  elementary  religious  meaning  of  sub- 
mission to  the  will  of  the  one  God.  In  other  words 
the  leaven  of  the  doctrine  of  monotheism  had  long 
been  working  in  the  minds  of  the  Arabians;  and,  as 
has  been  mentioned  above,  that  doctrine  became  a 
last  the  leading  motive  of  their  religion  only  because 
it  had  already  from  the  first  been  present  in  their 
consciousness  in  germinal  form. 

It  is  this  conception,  then  (which  at  this  stage  ought 
rather  to  be  named  "sentiment")  of  monotheism 
that  pervades  the  mental  atmosphere  of  Arabia  at  the 
moment  when  Mohammed  appears.  Not  forty  days 
only,  but  forty  years,  rather,  he  meditates  in  the  wil- 
derness on  the  problem  of  life  which  he  everywhere 
hears  talked  of.  And  in  the  fulness  of  time  this 
problem,  for  him  and  for  his  race,  is  raised  in  his 
mind  to  the  highes.  power.  That  is,  it  unfolds  into 
its  own  answer:  "There  is  no  God  but  Allah,  and 
Mohammed  is  his  prophet." 

There  is,  indeed,  something  peculiarly  touching 
and  appropriate  in  the  legend  which  arose  at  a  later 
period  to  the  effect  that  in  his  early  youth  angels  took 
out  his  heart,  pressed  from  it  the  black  drops  of  sin^ 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  163 

filled  it  with  the  light  of  prophecy,  and  again  re- 
placed it.  Unlettered  he  no  doubt  was.  Ignorant  he 
cannot  reasonably  be  said  to  have  been.  He  was  no 
dialectician.  He  was  an  epileptic,  a  dreamer,  a  seer, 
a  man  of  iron  will,  a  born  preacher  of  Fate,  a  pro- 
claimer  of  the  omnipotence  of  man  through  absolute 
submission  to  the  will  of  Allah. 

He  might,  nay  must,  listen  intently  to  the  words, 
now  of  the  Jews,  now  of  the  Christians.  He  must 
turn  away  at  length  from  both,  because  both  had 
mingled  with  the  truth  what  seemed  to  him  the 
grossest  errors.  He  must  proclaim  to  his  people  the 
one  God  for  whom  their  own  hearts  had  long  been 
unconsciously  waiting. 

And  so  he  becomes  thus  far  the  prophet  of  his 
nation,  the  prophet  whose  words  are  to  fuse  them  in- 
to that  unity  and  intensity  of  purpose  which  will  long 
render  them  irresistible  to  other  peoples,  and  which 
will  also  irresistibly  impel  them  to  the  conviction  that 
the  fate  of  the  world  is  theirs  to  decide  because  they 
are  the  instruments  of  the  will  of  the  God  of  Fate. 

But  for  the  actual  accomplishment  of  this  an  elec- 
trifying word  was  indispensable.  And  Mohammed 
created  that  word.  In  the  spring  of  622  (the  year  of 
the  Hejrah),  certain  citizens  of  Medina  came  to 
Mecca  to  attend  the  ancient  annual  religious  festival, 
which  served  to  keep  up  a  sense  of  unity  among  the 
various  tribes.     The   visitors   made   it  the   occasion 


164  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANIvSM. 

also  to  invite  Mohammed  to  come  to  their  city,  his 
•own  people  having  thus  far  for  the  most  part  treated 
his  mission  with  scorn. 

On  his  part  the  prophet  delivered  to  them  a  reve- 
lation^ by  which  he  announced  that  God  had  in 
ancient  times  appointed  the  place  of  the  temple  at 
Mecca  as  a  residence  for  Abraham.  To  this  the 
prophet  added  the  further  declaration  that  Abraham 
was  the  founder  of  the  ancient  worship  at  that  place 

Sprenger  believes  this  to  have  been  Mohammed's 
own  invention,  pure  and  simple,  no  trace  of  it  appear- 
ing in  earlier  tradition.  On  the  other  hand  "most  of 
the  other  doctrines  of  islam  proceed  from  the  Zeit- 
geist.'' But  "through  this  invention  Mohammad 
gave  to  Islam  all  that  men  need,  all  that  separate 5 
religion  from  philosophy  :  [in  short  by  this  simple 
-stroke  he  gave  to  Islam]  nationality,  ceremonies, 
historical  reminiscences,  mysteries,  means  to  take 
Heaven  by  force,  means  to  mystify  his  own  con- 
science and  that  of  others.  Through  this  arbitrary 
creation  Mohammad  impressed  upon  Deism  his  own 
human  seal,  and  transformed  it  into  Mohamma- 
<ianism."" 

^Koran^  22.    27-32. 

-Op.  Cit.  II,  279.  With  this  single  exception,  then,  we 
may  agree  with  Renan  in  his  declaration  that  "Mo- 
hammed is  no  more  the  founder  of  monotheism  than  of  civ- 
ilization and  literature  among  the  Arabs.  The  conclusion 
from  numberless  facts  noted  for  the  first  time  by  M.  Caussin 
-de  Perceval  is  that  Mohammed  only  followed  the  religious 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  16S 

Summarily,  then,  the  central  factors  in  the  origirt 
of  Islam  may  be  stated  as  follows :  (1)  a  certain  sim- 
plicity of  faith  and  of  life  on  the  part  of  the  Arabs  ; 
with  (2)  an  undercurrent  of  Fatalism  tending  toward 
a  vague  monotheism  ;  (3)  an  impulse  from  without, 
mainly  from  Christian  and  Jewish  sources  more  or 
less  intermingled  and  finding  sudden  entrance  in 
greatly  increased  measure  in  the  sixth  century  A.  D. ; 
and  finally  (4)  that  series  of  happy  inspirations  on 
the  part  of  Mohammed,  especially  this  one  delivered 
to  the  men  of  Medina  and  which  served  as  the  elec- 
tric touch  which  suddenly  awakened  these  hitherta 
loosely  related  tribes  into  full  national  consciousness 
and  brought  them,  vibrant  with  the  sense  of  inex- 
tinguishable life,  upon  the  arena  of  history. 

II. 

With  such  clew  as  to  the  origin  of  these  faiths  re- 
spectively, we  have  next  to  inquire  what  is  the  cen- 
tral conception  of  each. 

As  we  have  seen,  Christianity  and  Judaism  can 
scarcely  have  entered,   even   in  their  most  abstract 


movement  of  his  time  instead  of  leading  it.     Monotheism^ 

the  worship  of  Allah,  the  Supreme  (Allah  taala),  seems  to 
have  been  always  the  basis  of  Arab  religion.  The  Semitic 
race  never  conceived  of  the  government  of  the  universe 
otherwise  than  as  an  absolute  monarchy.  Its  theodicy  has 
made  no  progress  since  the  Book  of  Job  ;  the  sublimities  and 
the  aberrations  of  polytheism  have  always  been  foreign  to 
it."  Studies,  etc  ,  p.  265.  Further  on  we  will  find  Sprenger 
emphasizing  this  point  in  another  way. 


166  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

form  of  monotheistic  faiths,  into  the  actual  com- 
position of  Islamism.  On  the  contrary  it  appears 
that  they  but  served  to  stimulate  into  actual  life  the 
inherent  tendency  toward  monotheism  latent  from  the 
first  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Arabs.  ^  Once  this 
consciousness  was  awakened,  the  complexity,  and  es- 
pecially the  spirituality,  of  those  faiths  (now  dimly 
brought  to  their  consciousness),  proved  incompre- 
hensible and  therefore  wholly  repellent  to  the  un- 
tutored minds  of  the  desert  people.  Hence  those 
elements  were  rejected  by  them  as  something  wholly 
foreign.^ 

Especially  was  this  the  case  with  the  more  deep- 
reaching  doctrines  of  Christianity.  Above  all,  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  Sonship  proved  a  stumbling- 
block  and  rock  of  offense  to  Mohammed  himself  ; 
and  accordingly  he  did  not  fail  to  denounce  it  vig- 
orously as  insulting  to  Divinity.  In  the  nineteenth 
Sura   of    the    Koran   (parts  of  which,    as    Sprenger 


^The  truth  is,  doubtless,  that  this  tendency  is  latent  in 
the  consciousness  of  all  primitive  peoples  Implicit  or  ex- 
plicit, the  conception  of  monotheism  is  a  primal  factor  of 
human  intelligence.  All  monistic  theories  have  their  essen- 
tial root  in  the  fundamental,  original  unity  of  consciousness 
itself.  For  further  intimations  on  this  point  the  reader  is 
referred  to  my  ^'HegePs  Educational  Ideas ^'"  pp.  137  fol., 
("Language  of  Quantity"). 

-"Reduced  to  its  essential  points,  Islamism  adds  nothing 
to  natural  religion  save  the  prophetic  character  of  Mo- 
hammed, and  a  certain  conception  of  Fatalism,  which  is  less 
an  article  of  faith  than  a  general  turn  of  mind  susceptible  of 
being  directed  to  a  purpose."     Renan.     Studies,  etc,     p.  282, 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  167 

thinks,  were  composed  for  Naggaschy,  the  Christian 
King  of  Abyssinia,  to  whom  certain  of  Mohammed's 
earlier  followers  had  fled  for  protection  from  the 
Meccans),  the  Prophet  gives  his  own  version  of  the 
miraculous  birth  of  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Mary.  And  to 
this  version  he  adds  the  significant  comment  :  "It  is 
not  worthy  of  Allah  that  he  should  have  a  child. 
Praise  be  to  him  (be  it  far  from  him)!  When  he  has 
determined  [to  produce]  anything  he  commands  : 
Let  it  be  !  and  it  is  [but  he  does  not  beget]. "^  And 
further  on:  "Ye  say:  Rahman  has  begotten  chil- 
dren. Ye  have  spoken  a  fearful  word  !  The  very 
heavens  should  rend,  the  earth  cleave  asunder,  the 
mountains  crumble  into  fragments — because  ye  have 
ascribed  children  to  Rahman.  It  is  not  fitting  for 
Rahman  that  he  should  beget  a  child.  Nay  all 
[beings]  in  heaven  and  in  earth  bow  before  him  as 
his  servants.  He  comprises  all  and  numbers  all. 
On  the  Day  of  Judgment  all  will  turn  pale  before  his 
appearing." 

Quite  in  keeping  with  this  Mohammed  does  not 
fail  to  pronounce  direst  woes  upon  those  who  address 
their  prayers  to  any  other  than  Allah. 

Very  interesting  in  this  connection  is  Sprenger's 
interpretation  of  the  fact  that  in  this  Sura  the  name 
Rahman  is  used  repeatedly  in  place  of  Allah.     He 


^Sprenger's  Version.    Leben  des  Moh.     II,  182-193. 


168  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

thinks  this  was  done  out  of  complaisance  to  the 
Christians  who  were  called  Rahmanists,  and  toward 
whom  Mohammed  was  then  favorably  inclined.  In- 
deed it  would  seem  that  at  this  period  Mohammed 
was  quite  mystified  as  to  the  significance  of  the 
Christian  doctrine,  and  especially  in  respect  of  the 
doctrine  of  Grace  with  w^hich  the  term  Rahman  was 
closely  associated  in  his  mind.  "If  one  would  trans- 
late Rahman,"  says  Sprenger,  "he  must  render  it 
through  the  phrase  :  'Well-spring  of  Grace  ;'  for  at 
the  time  during  which  Mohammad  preached  Rahman 
he  brooded  also  over  the  idea  that  faith  and  happi- 
ness are  the  consequences  of  God's  grace.  The  doc- 
trine of  Rahma,  Grace,  and  of  Rahman  are  indeed  of 
like  origin.  The  concept  which  the  pure  Semites 
had  of  the  Essence  of  Divinity  rendered  impossible 
for  them  the  theory  of  redemption.  But  Christ  re- 
mained the  source  of  Grace — Rahman — and  became 
therefore  the  predeterminer  of  Fate.  "^ 

A  few  pages  preceding  the  statement  just  quoted, 
Sprenger  intimates  the  ground  of  his  interpretation, 
as  follows  :  "But  that  under  Rahman  was  originally 
meant  the  Son  of  Man  appears  likely,  not  indeed 
from  the  spirit,  but  from  undigested  fragments  of 
those  parts  of  the  Koran  in  which  Rahman  is  men- 
tioned."-     And  yet  that  by  the  expression  :   "Son  of 


^Leben  des  Moh.     11.    205. 
'Op.  cit.  II.  202. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  169 

Man,"  a  meaning  is  conveyed  quite  foreign  to  that 
represented  by  it  in  countries  now  regarded  as  Chris- 
tian, is  evident  from  the  nature  of  the  case  in  general 
and  from  a  reference  elsewhere  made  by  Sprenger  in 
particular  to  the  outer  influences  upon  Mohammed's 
inspirations,  and  where  he  says  :  "We  recognize  in 
Rahman  the  demiurge  (Christ)  of  the  Jewish  Chris- 
tians."' 

For  a  time  Mohammed  wavered,  lured  as  he  ap- 
pears to  have  been  by  the  vague  phantasm  to  which 
the  crude  Oriental  imagination  had  reduced  the  con- 
ception of  the  God-Man.  On  the  other  hand,  so  soon 
as  he  became  clear  as  to  his  own  doctrine — so  soon  as 
he  had  once  fairly  put  himself  in  touch  with  the 
Zeitgeist,  i.e.,  with  the  real  spirit  of  his  own  people — 
there  was  no  longer  any  room  for  compromise  with 
any  other  faith,  no  longer  any  hesitation  on  the 
Prophet's  part. 

"Would  ye  have  any  other  worship  than  the 
worship  of  Allah  ?  Before  him  bow,  freely  or  of 
necessity,  whatever  is  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  and  be- 
fore his  Judgment-seat  must  they  at  length  appear." 
"This,"  says  Sprenger,  "is  a  precise  expression  of 
the  doctrine  of  Mohammad  and  closes  that  doctrine 
against  all  other  religions."  So  that  while  at  an 
earlier  period  of  his  career  Mohammed  was  disposed 

Ul.  225. 


170  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

to  regard  all  the  possessors  of  a  written  revelation  as 
worthy  of  being  counted  Moslems,^  his  conviction  be- 
came fixed  at  last  that  there  is  '*no  salvation  outside 
of  Mohammadanism,"2  and  hence  that  none  but  his 
own  followers  could  be  recognized  as  partakers  of  Is- 
lam ;  that  is,  of  the  one  "true  worship  of  God."^ 

It  appears,  then,  that  while  Islam,  as  the  religion 
of  the  submission  to  the  will  of  the  one  God,  had 
been  preached  in  Arabia  long  before  the  time  of  Mo- 
hammed, there  was  a  definite  advance  in  the  doc- 
trine as  proclaimed  by  the  Prophet.  And  the  ad- 
vance consisted  in  adding  to  the  original  idea  of  Sub- 
mission, the  new  aspect  of  faith  in  Allah. 

The  doctrine  was  also  clarified  by  the  distinct  re- 
jection of  all  intermediate  spirits.  Thus  it  came 
about  at  length,  as  by  a  logical  necessity,  that  to 
the  untrained  minds  of  the  Arabs  and  the  Arab 
prophet  both  Christianity  and  Judaism  bore  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  hopelessly  polytheistic,  and  that 
hence  these  religions  were  at  length  vehemently  put 
aside  as  corrupt  and  blasphemous. 

At  the  same  time  Mohammed  rendered  Islam  more 
tangible  in  two  ways.  The  first  was  by  adding  to  the 
doctrine  of  Islam  his  own  personality.  "There  is  no 
God  but  Allah,  and    Mohammed   is  his    Prophet." 


^Sprenger.     I,  70. 
20p.  cit.     Ill,  ,500. 
•'Op.  cit.     496. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  171 

Secondly  he  added  to  it  the  personality  of  the  very 
people  to  whom  he  appealed.  For  all  true  believers 
there  was  already  prepared  a  Paradise  of  all  delights 
that  could  stir  the  longings  of  such  minds  ;  while  on 
the  other  hand  the  fire  burned  unquenchably  for  all 
who  failed  to  accept  his  teachings.  Indeed  it  was  the 
motive  of  fear  even  more  than  the  motive  of  hope 
upon  which  Mohammed — rather  instinctively  than 
deliberately — relied  as  a  means  of  converting  men  to 
active  faith  in  his  teaching. 

Add  to  this  his  fine  stroke  of  wisdom  in  proclaim- 
ing Abraham  as  the  founder  of  the  sacred  rites  at 
Mecca,  and  thus  presenting  the  motive  of  national 
pride  in  a  form  inspired  by  religion,  which  religion 
was  thus  to  be  enforced  by  the  sword,  and  we  see 
what  were  the  simple  elements  whose  fusion  consti- 
tuted the  fundamental  principles  of  Islam  as  Moham- 
medanism in  its  initial  form.  Evidently  the  very 
spinal  cord  of  this  principle  is  the  purest  fanatical 
zeal. 

If  now  we  turn  to  Christianity  and  inquire  what 
constitutes  its  fundamental  conception,  the  result 
reached  is  found  to  be  one  of  vitally  different  char- 
acter. 

Jesus  declared  that  He  "came  not  to  destroy,  but  to 
fulfil."  The  trenchant  clearness  of  this  statement  at 
once  suggests  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  of  the  doc- 
trines already  developed  by  the  Jews — the  doctrines 


172  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

clearly  intended  as  those  to  be  fulfilled — and  as  to  the 
precise  interpretation  which  Jesus  himself  put  upon 
those  doctrines. 

Through  a  long  course  of  discipline  the  Jews  had 
developed  into  clearness  a  strict  doctrine  of  mono- 
theism. Further  than  this  their  intensity  of  earnest- 
ness had  so  far  clarified  their  convictions  concerning 
the  deeper  significance  of  this  doctrine  that  spiritual 
characteristics  of  the  loftiest  nature  were  at  an  early 
period  already  ascribed  to  their  God. 

It  is  true,  there  is  here  as  elsewhere  a  manifest  pro- 
cess of  evolution.  The  earliest  conception  which  the 
People  of  Israel  formed  of  the  Being  who  was  for 
them  the  Supreme  object  of  worship,  was  that  of  a 
national  divinity  who  was  at  the  same  time  a  nature- 
divinity.  Thus  in  a  psalm^  ascribed  to  David,  and 
which  Dr.  Oort  regards  as  in  any  case  of  a  date 
earlier  than  the  captivity,  the  national  God  is  con- 
ceived as  manifesting  himself  especially  in  the  more 
striking  forms  of  natural  phenomena. 

A  portion  is  here  quoted  (from  the  rendering  of 
Dr.  Oort),  as  indicating  the  character  of  the  whole  : 

"  The  snares  of  death  were  'round  me. 
Then  I  cried  to  Yahweh-  in  my  distress, 
Yea,  I  cried  aloud  to  my  God. 


^Psalm  xviii,  1-17. 
'Jehovah. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  173 

He  heard  my  voice  from  his  palace, 

And  my  cry  broke  through  to  his  ear. 

Then  the  earth  trembled  and  heaved, 

The  roots  of  the  mountains  shuddered, 

And  heaved  because  he  was  wroth. 

Smoke  rose  up  in  his  nostrils, 

A  consuming  fire  from  his  mouth. 

Coals  blazed  forth  from  him. 

He  bowed  the  heavens  and  came  down 

With  storm-clouds  under  his  feet. 

He  rode  on  a  thunder-cloud  and  flew, 

And  shot  forth  on  the  wings  of  the  wind. 

He  veiled  himself  in  a  mantle  of  darkness, 

And  shrouded  himself  in  dark  waters  and  masses  of  cloud. 

By  the  brightness  before  him  his  clouds  were  broken, 

By  hail  and  coals  of  fire. 

And  Yahweh  thundered  in  the  heavens, 

The  voice  of  the  highest  was  heard. 

He  shot  forth  his  arrows  and  scattered  my  foes, 

Countless  flashes  of  lightning  to  confound  them."^ 

Magnificent  as  is  this  representation  of  a  Power  im- 
perfectly apprehended  as  personal,  but  also  as  exert- 
ing itself  chiefi)^  amid  and  through  the  most  impres- 
sive aspects  of  natural  forces,  there  is  presented  a 
still  more  sublime  conception  of  a  far  more  clearly  ap- 
prehended. Divinity  in  the  following  "fragment  of  an 
ancient  psalm  of  nature 


.»» 


"The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God, 


^ Bible  For  Learners.    1,124. 


174  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

The  firmament  heralds  the  work  of  his  hands  ; 
Day  upon  day  pours  forth  instruction, 
Night  upon  night  bears  witness."^ 

On  the  other  hand  the  spiritual  nature  of  Divinity 
comes  more  and  more  clearly  into  view  with  succeed- 
ing ages.  The  captivity  was  beyond  doubt  one  of 
the  most  effective  phases  in  the  discipline  of  the 
"Chosen  People"  Their  views  of  the  world,  of  the 
majesty  of  Yahweh,  their  estimate  of  the  intimate  re- 
lations of  individual  man  to  God,  are  widened  and 
deepened  and  clarified.  It  is  perhaps  from  the  time 
of  Hezekiah  that  the  following  fine  specimen  comes 
to  us  : 

"  Yahweh  is  our  refuge  and  our  strength, 
A  help  that  fails  not  in  time  of  trouble. 
Therefore  we  fear  not,  though  the  earth  should  swing, 
And  the  niDuntains  tremble  in  the  midst  of  the  sea. 
I^etthe  foaming  waters  roar; 
Let  the  mountains  rock  when  the  sea  rages; 
Yet  Yahweh  of  hosts  is  with  us, 
Our  fortress  is  Jacob's  God. 
A  rolling  stream  makes  glad  the  city  of  God, 
That  holy  city  where  dwells  the  Most  High. 
Yahweh  is  in  her  midst,  she  cannot  be  shaken; 

Yahweh  shall  help  her  at  early  dawn. 

♦  *  -x-  -x  *  *  *     . 

Come  and  behold  the  deeds  of  Yahweh, 
Who  fills  the  earth  with  amazement  ; 


'Psalm  xix.    ^^^  Bible  for  Learners.     11,314 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  175 

Who  makes  war  to  cease  throughout  the  world  ; 

Who  breaks  the  bow,  who  shivers  the  lance,  who  burns  the 

chariots  ; 
Be  still,  and  acknowledge  that  I  am  Yahweh, 
Exalted  among  the  heathen,  exalted  in  the  earth  ! 
Yahweh  of  hosts  is  with  us, 
Our  fortress  is  Jacob's  God."^ 

Again  with  the  Second  or  Babylonish  Isaiah  the 
conception  of  the  exclusive,  absolute  oneness  of  God 
is  proclaimed  with  simple  but  most  impressive  dig- 
nity. The  exiles"  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
gods  of  the  heathen.  The  prophet  brings  to  his 
fellow-exiles  the  following  assurance  : 

"Ye  are  my  witnesses,  saith  Jahveh, 
And  my  servant  whom  I  have  chosen, 
That  ye  may  observe  it  and  believe  me, 
And  understand  that  /  am  he  : 
Before  me  there  was  no  God  formed, 
And  there  shall  be  none  after  me. 
I,  even  I,  am  Jahveh, 
And  beside  me  there  is  none  that  saveth."^ 

And  again,  still  more  emphatically  : 

"Thus  saith  Jahveh,  Israel's  king  and  redeemer,  Jahveh  of 
hosts : 
I  am  the  first  and  the  last, 
And  beside  me  there  is  no  god."^ 


^Psalm  xlvi.     ^t.^  Bible  for  Learners,    II.  282. 

-Middle  of  Sixth  Century,  B.  C. 

'Isaiah  xliii.  10   fol.    See  Kuenen.    The  Religion  of  Israel. 
II,  126. 

■•Isaiah  xliv,  6. 


176  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

But  also  this  prophet  feels  vividly  and  proclaims 
with  confidence  the  personal  sympathy  which  the 
worshiper  of  this  sole,  eternal  Divinity  may  unhesi- 
tatingly expect  from  Him. 

*<  Why  sayest  thou,  O,  Jacob. 
And  speakest  thou,  O,  Israel, 
'My  way  is  hid  from  Jahveh, 
And  my  right  passeth  by  my  god  ?' 
Knowest  thou  not,  or  hast  thou  not  heard, 
That  Jahveh  is  an  everlasting  god, 
The  creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
Who  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary, 
Whose  understanding  is  unsearchable  ? 
He  giveth  power  to  the  faint, 
And  to  the  weak  he  sendeth  great  strength, 
Youths  become  faint  and  weary,. 
And  young  men  surely  stumble, 

But  they  that  wait  for  Jahveh  shall  renew  their  strength, 
And  spread  out  their  wings  as  eagles  : 
They  shall  run  and  not  become  weary. 
They  shall  walk  and  faint  not."^ 

And  yet,  though  the  return  to  Jerusalem  kindles 
enthusiasm  and  is  followed  by  the  restoration  and  ex- 
tension of  the  Law,  it  is  but  too  evident  that  heathen 
influences  work  their  way  into  the  communities  of 
the  faithful.  Nay,  it  even  comes  to  this,  that  foreign 
rulers  persecute  the  most  rigidly  devout  worshipers 
of  Jahveh. 


'Isa.  xl,  27-31.    Kuenen.  Op.  cit.  II,  127. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  177 

But  this  very  persecution  really  serves  to  intensify 
their  enthusiasm.  And  as  the  coming  of  the  politi- 
cal Messiah  seems  further  and  further  deferred,  these 
eager -minds,  in  their  very  desperation  at  this  delay, 
turn  more  and  more  toward  the  spiritual  aspect  of 
their  relation  to  God,  and  find  in  their  own  sins  the 
explanation  of  the  seeming  failure  of  the  divine 
promises. 

Similarly,  when  they  feel  that  they  can  claim  to 
have  rendered  faithful  service,  they  call  confidently 
on  their  God  for  deliverance  ;  and  when  the  false 
gods  that  have  been  introduced  among  them  are 
driven  out  and  the  temple  is  once  more  cleansed,^ 
they  break  forth  in  songs  of  rejoicing  expressive  of 
unbounded  confidence  in  the  saving  grace  of  their 
God. 

"  Give  thanks  unto  Yahweh,  for  he  is  good, 

His  mercy  endures  forever ! 

****»♦ 

It  is  better  to  trust  in  Yahweh  than  men, 

Better  in  Yahweh  than  princes. 

*****  -jf 

Blessed  is  he  who  comes  in  the  name  of  Yahweh  ! 

We  greet  them  from  Yahweh's  house. 

God  Yahweh  gives  us  light ; 

Bind  the  festive  offering  with  cords  to  the  altar. 

Thou  art  my  God,  I  will  praise  thee  ! 


^B.  C.    164,   the  temple  was   restored   to   the  worship   of 
Jahveh,  after  three  years  of  use  for  the  worship  of  Jupiter. 


178  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

My  God,  I  will  sing  thy  glory  ! 

Praise  Yahweh,  for  he  is  good,  i 

For  his  grace  endures  forever."^ 

The  later  part  of  their  history  is  a  long  series  of  al- 
ternations from  hope  to  despair  and  from  despair  to 
hope  again.  Through  which  process  one  may  trace 
the  development  and  deepening  into  permanent  form 
of  a  peculiarly  intense  phase  of  feeling  which  in  the 
outcome  shows  itself  plainly  as  completely  iiiterfused 
hope  and  despair.  Some  indeed  came  to  doubt  God, 
while  the  trust  of  others  became  the  more  passionate 
as  all  outward  signs  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  divine 
promises  seemed  to  fail. 

Now  it  is  precisel}^  this  passionate  earnestness  of 
the  Jews,  blended  with  their  elevated  view  of  the 
oneness  and  majesty  of  their  God,  that  constitutes  the 
central  element  in  the  presupposition  of  Christianity. 
Israel  is  "he  who  strives  with  God. "  Israel,  in  the 
wider  sense  of  the  term,  is  the  race  which  for  thirteen 
centuries  strove  with  all  its  passionate  energy  to 
possess  itself  of  the  divine  Secret.  And  at  length, 
with  perfectly  logical  consistency,  all  the  noblest  as- 
pirations of  this  finely  endowed  people  find  their  nat- 
ural culmination  in  the  Son  of  Man  who  teaches  the 
world  that  the  fulfilment  of  all  reasonable  struggle  to 
find  out    God  is  to  be  discerned  in  this  :  the  divme 


'Psalm  cxviii.    Bible  for  Learner's.     II,  565. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  179 

Sonship  of  Mail.    "After  this  manner,  therefore,  pray 
5^e  :   'Our  Father,  which  art  in  Heaven!'  " 

The  personality  of  the  one  infinite  God,  and  its 
necessar}^  corollary,  the  divine  Sonship  of  Man — in 
other  words  the  identity  of  man's  nature  with  the 
nature  of  God— this  is  the  core  of  the  religion  which 
Jesus  taught  the  world.  "God  is  a  Spirit,"  and 
only  beings  of  like  spiritual  nature  can  "worship 
Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

Mohammed  taught  the  religion  of  Force.  Jesus 
taught  the  religion  of  lyove.  Islam  is  to  be  ex- 
tended by  means  of  the  sword,  and  the  terrors  of 
eternal  fire,  and  the  allurement  of  a  paradise  for  the 
senses.  Christianity  is  to  be  propagated  by  persuasion, 
by  assurance  of  eternal  communion  with  God,  by  the 
stirring  of  the  intelligence  to  recognize  that  this  com- 
munion can  be  realized  only  through  the  progressive 
practical  unfolding  of  the  divine  Ideal  in  the  indi- 
vidual's own  soul. 

Or,  the  comparison  may  be  presented  in  another 
form  :  Islamism,  with  its  absolute  submission  to  the 
will-^that  is,  to  the  absolute  Might — of  Allah  is  the 
very  religion  of  Fate.  It  presents  no  real  stimulus  to 
the  higher  nature  of  man.  On  the  contrary,  by  its 
principle  of  Resignation  to  the  ordering  of  the  world 
in  all  its  details  (including  every  act  of  individual 
man)  by  the  one  changeless  Power  on  the  one  hand  ; 
and  on  the  other  by  its  constant  emphasis  upon  not 


180  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

merely  sensuous  but  also  positively  sensual  delights 
as  the  reward  of  the  faithful  in  the  future  life,  Mo- 
hammedanism appears  as  a  religion  calculated  above 
everything  else  to  stimulate  the  sensuous  nature  of 
man  and  at  the  same  time  to  lull  into  eternal  sleep 
all  the  higher  phases  of  his  spiritual  nature. 

Marked  indeed  is  the  contrast  to  this  presented  by 
Christianity^!  With  its  clear  insight  into  the  identity 
of  man's  nature  with  the  divine  nature  this  religion 
announces  once  for  all  the  spontaneous,  creative 
quality  of  man's  will  and  thus  presents  itself  as  in  its 
very  essence  the  religion  of  Freedom.  So,  too,  by  its 
emphasis  upon  the  spirituality  of  man,  and  hence 
upon  the  spirituality  of  the  life  of  the  future  world 
where  (contrary  to  the  ideal  of  Mohammed  and  his 
followers),  there  is  "neither  marrying  nor  giving  in 
marriage,"  there  is  in  Christianity  ceaseless  and 
ever-increasing  stimulus  toward  the  fullest  and  most 
careful  cultivation  of  the  whole  spiritual  nature  of 
every  individual.  And  in  this  there  is  involved  the 
complete  subordination  of  the  sensuous  nature,  so 
that  it  shall  without  exception  serve  merely  as  in- 
strument in  the  unfolding  of  the  spiritual  life. 

It  may  be  true,  as  Deutsch  insists,  that,  "as  far  as 
Mohammed  and  the  Koran  are  concerned.  Fatalism  is 
an  utter  and  absolute  invention  ;'"  though  even  this 
cannot  be   accepted  without   modification.     But  the 

^Lit.  Remains,   p.  129.   cp.  also  p.  172. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  181 

whole  course  of  the  development  of  Islam,  as  well  as 
the  fundamental  doctrines  developed  from  the  Koran 
by  believers  in  it,  render  it  impossible  to  accept  the 
same  scholar's  implied  denial  of  the  * 'popular  notion" 
that  Fatalism  is  "the  bane  of  Islam."  Rather,  as 
Sprenger  intimates^  at  the  outset  of  his  consideration 
of  the  "doctrine  of  predestination,"  as  an  aspect  of 
Mohammedanism,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  of  history 
that  "most  Moslems  are  Fatalists." 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  no  doubt  true  that  the  doc- 
trine of  predestination  has  found  place  also  in  the 
teachings  of  eminent  Christians.  And  yet,  however 
"similar"  were  the  circumstances  under  which 
Augustine  developed  that  doctrine,  with  those  under 
which  it  took  shape  in  Mohammed's  mind,-  the  dif- 
ferences involved  must  not  be  overlooked.  And 
these  differences  are  especially  important  on  the  side 
of  the  possible  or  actual  outcome  of  the  interpretation 
put  upon  this  doctrine  by  the  Moslem  on  the  one 
hand,  and  by  the  Christian  on  the  other.  And  this 
interpretation  takes  shape  practically  ever  as  mere 
passive  resignation  to  the  will  of  Allah  for  the 
former;  and,  for  the  latter,  as  infinite  spiritual 
striving. 

Thus  sensuality  is  the  logical  goal  of  the  one  faith, 
while  the  highest  spiritual  exaltation  is  the  logical 


^Leben  des  Moh.    II,  300. 
-Sprenger.    II,  307. 


182  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

goal  of  the  other.  Such  is  the  conclusion  to  which 
we  are  led  by  a  study  of  the  origins  of  these  faiths  re- 
spectively. 

III. 

We  may  now  turn  to  the  consideration  of  the  rela- 
tive capacity  of  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  to 
take  up  and  assimilate  "foreign"  elements.  And 
this,  rather  than  the  fact  of  wide  acceptance,  as  we 
cannot  too  strongly  insist,  is  the  redl  test  of  the  "uni- 
versality" of  a  religion. 

The  essential  element,  the  fundamental  principle  of 
truth,  in  a  religion  constitutes  its  actual  claim  to  be 
regarded  as  universal.  The  more  adequate  the  prin- 
ciple is  to  the  ultimate  needs  of  humanity,  the  more 
valid  is  its  claim.  In  this — the  highest — sense  a  re- 
ligion is  neither  more  nor  less  universal  because  of 
the  number  of  its  adherents.  Hence  it  may  be  truly 
said  that  neither  Buddhism  nor  Christianity  nor 
Mohammedanism  is  either  more  or  less  universal  to- 
day than  when  it  was  first  promulgated.  Kor  is 
Christianity  any  less  universal  than  either  of  the 
others  because  its  adherents  are  less  numerous^  than 
are  those  of  the  one  or  the  other  of  those  faiths.  Nay 
\i  geyierality  of  acceptance  is  to  be  counted  as  the  test 
6f  the  universality  of  a  religion  or  a  type  of  religions, 


^That  is,  even  allowing  this  to  be  the  fact. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  183 

then  it  will  have  to  be  admitted  that  Monotheism  it- 
self is  less  "universal"  than  is  polytheism. 

On  the  other  hand,  according  to  the  test  indicated 
above,  it  is  evident  that  the  most  truly  universal  re- 
ligion will  be  the  one  possessing  greatest  capacity  to 
take  up  and  assimilate  all  essential  elements  in  the 
life  of  humanity. 

With  this  preliminary  remark  let  us  trace  the  first 
historical  indications  as  to  the  capacity  of  Chris- 
tianity and  of  Mohammedanism  respectively,  to  re- 
spond adequately  to  the  demands  of  man's  spiritual 
nature.  And  this  may  be  best  done  by  comparing 
the  most  conspicuous  personages  succeeding  the 
Founder  on  either  side. 

For  our  present  purpose  we  may  allow  all  that  has 
been  claimed  as  to  the  "historical"  character  of  the 
accounts  we  have  of  Mohammed's  public  life,  and  as 
to  the  "legendary"  character  of  the  accounts  upon 
which  we  must  depend  for  our  knowledge  of  the  life 
of  Jesus.  What  is  essential  for  us  here  is  the  fact 
that  however  far  legendary  or  historical  (and  it  can- 
not reasonably  be  doubted  that  legend  blends  more  or 
less  with  history  in  both  cases),  the  accounts  that  re- 
main to  us  show  the  actual  belief  of  the  followers  of 
each  of  these  characters  respectively,  and  hence  re- 
flect in  either  case  the  nature  of  the  teachings  and  of 
the  personal  influence  of  the  deceased  leader. 
.  Compare,  then,  the  narrative  preserved  for  us  in 


184  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  Fourth  Gospel  of  the  scene  at  the  tomb  of  the 
Master,  together  with  its  climax  in  the  apparition  of 
the  risen  Master  to  Mary,  and  His  comforting  message 
to  his  ''brethren''  saying:  "I  ascend  unto  my  Father 
and  jyoiir  Father,  to  my  God  and  }^otir  God" — com- 
pare this  with  the  mixed  scene  immediately  after 
Mohammed's  death.  First  Omar,  that  "terrible  be- 
liever," as  Renan^  calls  him,  rushes  out  among  the 
people  and  threatens  vengeance  to  any  one  who  dares 
to  say  that  the  Prophet  could  die.  But  Abu-Bakr 
came  and  said:  "Ye  people  !  he  that  hath  worshipped 
Mohammad  let  him  know  that  Mohammad  is  dead  ; 
but  he  that  hath  worshipped  God,  that  the  Lord 
liveth  and  doth  not  die."" 

Between  these  two  representations  the  contrast  is 
striking  and  significant  enough.  From  the  one  we 
may  infer  with  perfect  security,  first  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  future  life  had  been  impressed  with  utmost 
vividness  upon  the  minds  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus ; 
secondly,  that  in  the  estimate  of  his  followers  he  was 
now  not  to  be  apprehended  through  the  senses — that 
in  his  transfigured  existence  he  could  not  be  touched 
with  the  hands,  that  he  could  only  be  seen  as  a 
luminous  life,  and  hence  only  by  the  light  of  intelli- 
gence transfigured  with  love  (as  at  Emmaus);  and 
thirdly,  we  may  with  equal  security  infer   that   the 


^Studies,  etc.  p.  260. 

-Lane-Poole.    Speeches,  etc.  0/ Moh.    Introduction,  p.  xlix. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  185 

conception  had  already  become  familiar  that  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus — those  everywhere  and  always  who 
heed  his  teachings — are  the  ''brethren"  of  Jesus  in 
such  sense  that  they,  alike  with  him,  could  with  per- 
fect truth  regard  God  as  "the  Father." 

Thus  the  divine  Sonship,  in  this  universal  and 
-eternal  significance,  is  already  at  the  point  of  emerg- 
ing into  explicit  form  in  the  newly  unfolding  "Chris- 
tian consciousness."  And  with  this  conception 
•dawning  in  their  minds  the  disciples  turn  from  de- 
spair to  hope,  from  grief  to  joy,  from  the  uncertain- 
ties of  earlier  and  more  or  less  materialistic  misappre- 
hensions of  the  mission  of  their  Master  to  the  clearer 
view  of  that  perpetual  and  ever-enlarging  spiritual 
existence  to  which,  now  as  never  before,  they  recog- 
nize his  teachings  as  having  always  steadily  pointed. 
It  is  the  moment  in  which  the  Religion  of  "Israel" 
— the  religion  of  the  genuine  "striver  after  God" — 
merges  into  its  universal,  eternal  form. 

In  glaring  contrast  with  this  some  of  the  followers 
of  Mohammed  exhibit  the  ferocity  of  that  zeal  which 
trusts  in  physical  force,  and  in  that  alone,  as  the  one 
sure  means  of  subduing  doubt ;  while  others  manifest 
complete  resignation  to  the  will  of  the  all-ruling 
Allah,  who  alone  seems  to  live  in  this  moment  of 
•death. 

But  let  us  now  enter  more  precisely  into  the  com. 
parison  of  these  two  religions  respectively  in  so  far  as 


186  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

they  exhibit  a  capacity  to  take  up  and  assimilate  ele- 
ments which  on  first  view  appear  to  be  foreign  to 
them.  And  first  let  us,  as  already  proposed,  compare 
them  in  respect  of  the  attitude  which  each  has  as- 
sumed toward  science. 

Here,  too,  the  comparison  will  be  the  easier  to 
make  because  each  side  presents  a  striking  personage 
who  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  thorough-going  repre- 
sentative of  the  great  movement  in  which  he  takes  a 
leading  part. 

Omar  has  been  called  '  'the  Simon  Peter  of  Islam. ' ' ^ 
But  such  comparison  is  by  no  means  deep-reaching. 
In  fact  it  scarcely  extends  beyond  the  crudeness  and 
impulsiveness  of  character  in  each  of  these  two  men. 
Much  more  significant  are  the  points  of  likeness  be- 
tween Omar  and  St.  Paul.  They  are  alike  positive 
and  aggressive.  At  the  outset  each  is  conspicuous 
as  a  persecutor  of  the  new  faith.  The  conversion  of 
each  is  sudden  and  dramatic.  From  the  moment  of 
conversion  the  zeal  of  each  knows  no  bounds.  Life 
itself  is  unreservedly  devoted  to  the  spread  of  the 
faith  that  had  previously  been  hated.  Nay,  each  be- 
comes in  a  very  important  sense  the  second  founder  of 
the  faith  to  which  he  has  been  won. 

Mohammed  had  brought  all  Arabia  to  accept  Islam. 
But  after  his  death  three-fourths  of  the  peninsula  fell 


'Lane-Poole.     The  Speeches  of  Mohammed.    Introduction^ 
p.  xlix. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  187 

away,  and  evidently  through  the  personal  weakness 
and  faults  which  the  Prophet  himself  had  exhibited 
in  the  latter  part  of  his  rule,  ^  His  surviving  friends 
saved  his  religion  from  sinking  into  a  merely  local 
sect,  or  even  dissolving  altogether. 

Doubtless  Abu-Bakr  did  much,  but  "the  conquer- 
ing principle  of  Islamism,  the  idea  that  the  world 
ought  to  become  Moslem,  is  Omar's  thought.""  In- 
deed Sprenger  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  **Omar  is  the 
actual  founder  of  the  Moslem  power.  "^  And  he  fur- 
ther gives  it  as  his  estimate  that  *'in  ever}^  respect 
Omar  stands  higher  than  the  Prophet.  He  is  free 
from  the  weaknesses  and  vagaries  which  stain  the 
character  of  the  latter.  In  short  he  was  a  man 
full  of  virile  earnestness  and  practical  power. ' ' 

'In  more  than  one  emergency  it  is  Omar  who  de- 
cides for  the  Prophet  himself  and  secures  him  against 
fatal  mistakes.  And  after  Mohammed's  death  Omar 
becomes  the  apostle  to  the  gentiles — in  his  own  terri- 
ble manner.  For  "never  did  man  believe  so 
fiercely."^  •  Even  while  the  Prophet  was  living 
Omar's  ferocity  of  belief  was  but  too  often  manifest. 
Abu-Sofyan,  hitherto  an  "unbeliever,"  is  brought  by 
night  through  the  camp  before  Mecca.     As  they  pass 


^Sprenger.     Op.  cit.     IIT.  Preface,  p.  v. 
?Renan.     Studies ,  etc.    p.  249. 
30p.  cit.     II  [.   Pref.  p.  v. 
^Renan.     Studies^  etc.,  p.  249. 


188  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

■Omar's  fire,  Omar  sees  Abu-Sofyan  and  exclaims  : 
"Praise  be  to  God  that  the  enemy  of  God  has  fallen 
into  my  hands  without  safe-conduct  !"  Hurrying 
to  the  tent  of  Mohammed,  in  hope  of  forestalling 
clemency,  he  pleads  :  "Allow  me  to  cutoff  his  head; 
for  he  has  come  without  pledge  of  safety. "  And  only 
by  the  intervention  of  Abbas,  the  Prophet's  uncle, 
who  declares  that  he  himself  has  given  his  own 
guarantee  of  protection,  is  the  life  of  this  "enemy  of 
God"  saved.' 

Evidently  this  chief  apostle  of  Islam  has  never 
dreamed  of  the  sacredness  of  human  life  as  such.  It 
is  only  a  safe-conduct  from  one  of  his  own  faith  that 
can  restrain  him  from  hewing  off  with  his  own  hands 
the  head  of  an  "enemy  of  God"  who  has  come  within 
his  reach.  And  yet  in  spite  of  this  ferocit}',  (or  shall 
we  rather  say:  because  of  it?)  "even  during  the  life 
of  the  Prophet,  Omar  had  been  of  greater  service  for 
the  triumph  of  Islam,  nay  even  for  the  purity  of  the 
doctrine,  than  had  Mohammad  himself."" 

For  such  character  science  is  simple,  brief  and 
absolute.  His  one  argument  is  the  sword;  his  one 
premiss,  the  Koran.     And  he  knew  the  Koran    ("by 


'  Sprenger,  Leben  des  Moh.  III.  317.  Sprenger  adds  this 
interesting  reflection:  that  "if  the  story  be  true  the  progenitor 
of  the  Abbaside  Chalifs  thus  saves  the  life  of  the  fore-father 
of  the  Omayids,  and  for  thanks  the  latter  usurps  during  a 
full  century  the  rights  of  the  former." 

^Sprenger.  III.     Preface,  p.  v. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  189 

heart" — Jiot  by  reflective  intelligence)  with  an  accu- 
racy that  doubtless  no  one  but  the  Prophet  could 
rival,  unless  it  be  Abu-Bakr/ 

Surely  with  such  an  apostle  to  the  gentiles  all 
libraries,  Alexandrine  or  other,  are  fore-doomed  ! 
His  dialectic  is  fiery  and  effective.  Any  book  agree- 
ing with  the  Koran  must  be  useless.  Any  book  not 
agreeing  with  the  Koran  must  be  pernicious.  In 
either  case  it  must  be  burned. 

Could  a  priori  reasoning  (as  commonly  understood)' 
be  more  perfectly  or  more  exhaustively  formulated  ?' 
Here  is  an  original  thinker.  His  science  proves  the 
absolute  uselessness  and  even  utter  impossibility  of 
all  science — at  least  within  the  range  of  his  sword  or 
of  his  torch. 

More  "absolute"  than  this  a  religion  could  not 
possibly  be.  It  has  sprung  into  existence  in  absolute 
perfection.  The  Koran  is  simply  a  divinely  given 
copy  of  the  Original  Book  that  is  preserved  forever, 
or  rather  which  eternally  is,  in  Heaven."  Its  accept- 
ance must  therefore  be  absolute.  And  this  means 
not  only  that  those  to  whom  this  infinitely  precious 


^Op.  cit.,  p.  xl.  Sprenger  relates  (loc.  cit.,  p.  xxxvi)  that 
when  Omar  brought  Hischam  to  the  Prophet  to  decide  which 
of  them  repeated  a  certain  passage  of  the  Koran  correctly, 
Mohammed,  after  hearing  both,  said  they  were  both  correct. 
The  Koran  had  been  sent  to  him  from  Heaven  in  seven  dif- 
ferent forms ! 

^If  only  such  glimpse  could  have  been  pursued,   what   a^ 
revelation  in  germ  lay  there  ! 


190  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

Book  has  been  intrusted  have  the  absolute  right,  or 
rather  the  absolute  duty,  to  enforce  with  absolute 
authority  this  absolutely  exclusive  Faith;  but  it  also, 
as  a  logical  consequence  of  all  this,  means  that  Islam 
as  proclaimed  by  Omar  must  absolutely  ignore  all 
psychological  laws.  For  by  the  very  nature  of  mind 
the  genuine  spiritual  acceptance  of  any  doctrine  is 
necessarily  gradual.  And  this  is  so  for  the  reason 
that  such  genuine  spiritual  acceptance  includes  the 
intelligent  comprehension  of  such  doctrine — a  result 
which  can  be  achieved  only  through  the  gradual  un- 
folding of  the  individual's  own  power  of  intelligence 
to  comprehend  the  doctrine  in  question.  In  short,  the 
Islamism  of  Omar  is  a  direct  practical  denial  of  that 
law  of  necessary  interrelation  between  Reason  and 
Revelation  already  hinted  at  in  another  part  of  the 
present  volume.  ^    , 

And  now,  what  of  the  Christianity  of  Paul  ?  To 
many  readers  doubtless  the  first  thing,  that  will  sug- 
gest itself  is  the  fact  that  this  "apostle  of  the  gentiles" 
also  wields  a  sword — though,  as  such  apostle,  his 
sword  is  the  mystic  sword  of  Reason.  He  is  a  man 
of  aggressive  energy  who,  under  different  circum- 
stances,   might    easily   have  been    a    great    military 

leader. 

■  •     -,...-•    .  ... •'  -J .  ..  . , ,  .,  .   .  ^    ,,  ■.,..      ) 

Btit'  his  environment-  is  "altbgether  unfavorable  to 


iCpf   above-,  p,    lay^  iolr,   a\so  my  ■^^o\u^lle  :/}Tke.,.lVprld- 
Energy  and  Its  Self-Conservatio)i^\\  -  j),  2^5  i^l^  ^/^  iiiif..^'.  •  vr 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  191 

this.  During  the  initial  period  of  Christian  develop- 
ment the  learned  professions  offered  the  only  avail- 
able field  for  a  young  man  of  Jewish  blood  and  faith 
and  who  was  moved  by  any  really  worthy  ambition. 
It  was  Jerusalem,  too,  that  offered  him  both  the 
means  of  preparation  for  and  opportunity  to  realize 
his  career.  Elsewhere  he  must  become  "Hellen- 
ized;"  that  is,  he  must  cease  to  be  a  Jew  in  the  strict 
(religious)  sense  of  the  term. 

And  yet  Jerusalem  itself  could  not  wholly  exclude 
the  liberalizing  tendencies  of  the  time.  So  that  when 
young  Saul  came  up  from  Tarsus  to  perfect  his  edu- 
cation as  a  Pharisee,  or  member  of  the  strict  national 
party,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  come  under  the  in- 
struction of  the  great  Gamaliel,  a  man  who  was  too 
vigorous  a  thinker  to  allow  himself  to  be  confined 
within  the  harrow  limits  of  what  was  then  looked 
upon  as  the  strictest  orthodoxy.^ 

At  the  same  time  this  surpassing  the  bounds  of 
orthodoxy  could  not  have  been  anything  approaching 
a  conscious  criticistn  upon,  but  must  rather  have  con- 
sisted simply  in  a  profounder  interpretation  of  its 
fundamental  tenets.  Certain  it  is  that  Saul  came  out 
of  this  school  an  uncompromising  Pharisee.  What- 
ever  he  may    have  acquired    of    Greek  culture"   did 


^"His  teacher,  Gamaliel,  was  comparatively  free  from  the 
rabbinical  abhorrence  and  contempt  of  heathen  literature." 
Schaff.     History  of  the  Christian  Chtirch.   I.  289. 

2lvOC.  cit.  '  '    ^         '  ?i  {•  >■ 


192  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

not  in  the  least  disturb — or  had  not  yet  disturbed — his 
convictions  as  to  the  religion  of  his  fathers. 

And  yet  this  very  element  of  Greek  culture,  to- 
gether with  the  fact  of  his  Roman  citizenship  and  all 
that  this  implied,  must  have  produced  in  his  active 
mind  a  ferment  which,  however  unconscious  for  the 
time  he  may  have  been  of  the  fact,  could  not  fail  to 
produce  sooner  or  later  on  his  part  a  more  or  less 
violent  revulsion  against  the  narrow,  arbitrary  for- 
malism of  the  Jewish  Law. 

The  serene  gaiety  of  the  Greek  shines  out  alike  in 
the  rhythm  of  his  art  and  in  the  subtle  symmetry  of 
his  logic.  The  sedateness  of  the  Roman  appears 
everywhere  in  his  administration  of  law — i.  e. ,  in  the 
process  of  demonstrating  the  folly  of  resisting  the  or- 
ganic might  of  the  principle  of  Justice  as  embodied  in 
the  State.  The  infinite  grace  of  the  one,  the  over- 
whelming majesty  of  the  other,  these  two  agencies  were 
working  ceaselessly  upon  all  minds,  and  most  of  all 
upon  minds  of  a  deeply  earnest  and  active  character. 

Everywhere  the  results  were  plainly  manifest. 
Everywhere,  especially  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion, 
and  even  also  the  Palestinian  Jews,  were  becoming 
"Hellenized."  Even  in  Jerusalem  this  process  did 
not  fail  to  show  itself. 

Exceedingly  interesting  and  important  is  the  fact, 
too,  that  it  was  precisely  these  Hellenized  Jews  who 
formed  a  nucleus  for  the  development  of  Christianity 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  193 

in  its  most  vital  form.  Nay,  only  three  years  after 
the  death  of  Jesus  a  radical  Hellenist  is  found  among 
the  seven  deacons  of  the  newly- founded  church  at 
Jerusalem.  This  was  Stephen,  "a  man  full  of  faith 
and  zeal,  the  forerunner  of  the  Apostle  Paul,"  who 
"boldly  assailed  the  perverse  and  obstinate  spirit  of 
Judaism,  and  declared  the  approaching  downfall  of 
the  ^losaic  economy.'" 

Stephen's  genius,  energy  and  nobility  of  character 
could  not  fail  of  deeply  impressing  the  young  Phari- 
see recently  graduated  from  the  orthodox  school ;  and 
this  the  more  since  he  himself  already  possessed 
within  his  own  soul  the  leaven  of  Hellenism.  Nor 
was  it  in  the  least  strange  that  the  bold  challenge 
thrown  out  against  the  mere  legality  of  Mosaism  by 
the  free-thinking  deacon  of  the  newly-developed 
heretical  sect  should  at  first  awaken  in  3'oung  Saul  a 
horror  and  hatred  all  the  more  intense  because  in  the 
same  instant  the  personality  of  Stephen  exercised 
upon  him  a  genuine  and  powerful  fascination. 

Thus  it  must  seem  to  him  the  supreme  duty  of  the 
hour  to  suppress  a  movement  so  fraught  with  danger 
to  the  principle  of  nationality  and  orthodoxy  to 
which  he  had  but  just  dedicated  his  life.  The  death 
of  Stephen,  by  the  usual  means  in  such  cases,  could 
not  but  appear  to  Saul  as  beyond  all  question  a  thing 


'Schaff.    Op.  cit.    I,  249. 


194  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

demanded  by  the  very  highest  considerations.  Should 
he  hesitate  he  must  at  the  very  outset  acknowledge 
himself  to  be  faint-hearted  and  unworthy  of  the 
cause  in  which  he  had  but  just  enlisted. 

Can  we  doubt  that  the  soul  of  Saul,  in  truth  so 
deeply  tender,  must  have  reinforced  itself  with  such 
considerations  as  the  foregoing  while  he  pursued  the 
followers  of  the  recently  executed  Jesus  ;  and  while 
he  stood  by,  outwardly  calm,  holding  the  garments  of 
those  who  hurled  the  death-dealing  stones  upon  the 
sinking  form  of  Stephen?  Nay,  more  ;  can  we  doubt 
that,  from  the  moment  of  this  deeply  tragic  scene, 
there  should  be  incessantly  present,  and  with  ever- 
increasing  vividness  to  his  mind,  the  upturned  face  of 
Stephen,  transfigured  in  death,  and  that  the  last 
prayer  of  the  dying  man  should  day  and  night  ring 
in  his  ears  :   "Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit  ?" 

Surely  in  the  eager,  earnest  soul  of  this  young 
Pharisee  there  are  present  the  elements  whose  fusion 
must  result  in  some  memorable  miracle  !  Born  a 
Jew,  born  to  Roman  citizenship,  from  his  youth  in- 
troduced to  Hellenic  culture,  trained  by  the  greatest 
of  teachers  in  the  recognized  college  of  the  national 
party,  entered  upon  active  duty  as  a  conservative  of 
the  conservatives,  consenting  to  the  death  of  a  man 
whose  speech  seems  blasphemy,  and  yet  whose  dying 
look  and  word  reveal  him  as  a  kindred  spirit — with 
all  this  how  could  it  be  otherwise  than  that  in  the  soul 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  195 

of  Saul  there  should  at  lenj2^th  spring  up  a  great  light 
above  the  brightness  of  the  sun — the  clear  light  of 
Reason,  by  which  for  the  moment  he  should  be 
blinded,  indeed,  but  by  which  also  he  should  soon 
comprehend  the  great  problem  of  Life  in  its  essential 
features  and  thus  be  led  to  give  his  own  life  that  he 
might  bring  all  men  to  see,  and  henceforth  to  be 
guided  by,  the  great  Solution  ! 

All  this  has  come  to  us,  indeed,  in  the  form  of  a 
vision,  an  external  appeal  to  the  senses.  The  heavens 
opened  and  the  Son  of  Man  was  seen.  Distinct  words 
also  were  heard  :  "Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou 
me?"  But  none  saw,  none  heard  save  Saul,  hi  no 
other  soul  were  the  factors  present  through  whose  com- 
bination such  result  could  be  produced. 

Doubtless  the  * 'vision"  was  confined  to  Saul,  and 
doubtless  also  it  was  a  "merely"  subjective  vision. 
But  doubtless  also  the  essential  significance  of  the 
vision  is  the  eternal  fact  that  the  Son  of  Man  is  no 
less  truly  the  Son  of  God  ;  that  the  Son  of  God,  in 
the  universal  significance  of  the  term,  includes  every 
conscious  unit  in  the  eternal  process  of  Creation  ;  and 
that  there  is  "no  other  name  given  under  Heaven  or 
among  men  whereby  we  may  be  saved"  but  this  of 
the  eternal,  universal  Christ,  which  is  the  divine 
nature  common  to  all  spiritual  units,  and  yet  which 
can  be  realized  in  and  for  individual  man  in  no  other 
way  than  through  the  perpetual   crucifixion   of   the 


196  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

flesh  on  the  one  hand  and  the  perpetual  resurrection 
of  the  spirit  on  the  other. 

That  is  the  true  Damascus  vision.  Thus  Heaven 
opens.  It  is  the  clear  recognition  of  the  eternal  Son- 
ship  as  correlative  with  the  eternal  Fatherhood,  the 
clear  recognition  of  the  spiritual  as  the  vital,  essen- 
tial, eternal  Truth  in  its  own  perfect  realization. 

The  coexistence  of  a  number  of  factors  in  the  mind 
for  a  considerable  period  without  any  conscious  com- 
bination of  them  taking  place,  and  the  subsequent 
sudden  and  seemingly  spontaneous  fusion  of  these 
elements  into  a  new  and,  to  the  individual  conscious- 
ness, more  or  less  revolutionizing  concept,  is  a  fact 
which  must  be  familiar  to  all  who  have  a  well-de- 
veloped habit  of  introspection  and  observation. 

Of  course  the  character  of  those  factors  will  depend 
primarily,  in  part  upon  the  character  of  the  mind  in 
which  they  come  to  coexist,  and  in  part  upon  the 
character  of  the  environment  ;  just  as  the  intensity 
and  clearness  of  their  fusion  will  depend  upon  the 
depth  and  earnestness  of  that  mind.  That  is,  given 
the  mind  of  a  Paul  and  given  the  conditions  of  his 
life,  involving  as  they  did  the  fundamental  aspects  of 
refined  intellectual  life  (the  Greek  factor),  of  ma- 
tured, organically  unfolded  life  of  the  Will  (the  Ro- 
man factor),  and  the  most  intensely  developed  emo- 
tional life  (the  Jewish  factor),  and  the  product  cannot 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  197 

fail  to  be  the  unfolding  of  a  personality  thus  far 
unique  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  focusing  of  the  wondrously  complex  environ- 
ment of  the  then  human  world  in  the  personality,  first 
of  Jesus,  and  secondly  of  Paul — that  is  the  true 
miracle  ushering  in  the  period  of  genuine  freedom, 
the  millenium  of  divine  Humanity.  It  is  the  cul- 
mination of  the  long  process  of  Preparation,  of  the 
elementary  aspect  in  the  Education  of  Man.  It  is 
God  manifesting  Himself  in  the  flesh  to  the  degree  of 
individual  self-consciousness  ;  to  the  degree  of  in- 
finite hope  ;  to  the  degree  of  infinite  renunciation  ;  to 
the  degree  of  unhesitating  sacrifice  of  all  that  is 
merely  selfish,  and  this  for  the  sake  of  realizing  the 
ideal  of  infinite  selfhood  ;  to  the  degree  of  joyously 
casting  aside  all  that  is  merely  sensuous  and  tem- 
poral because  this  is  seen  to  be  the  condition  of  at- 
taining that  which  is  spiritual  and  eternal. 

Compared  with  this  any  conceivable  outward  mir- 
acle is  weak  and  meaningless.  Nay,  even  at  best  the 
outward  miracle,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  can 
appeal  only  to  the  senses.  It  is  only  the  inferred 
spiritual  meaning  that  can  be  of  real  interest  to  man. 
Reason  speaks  to  reason.  The  divine  light  of  Reve- 
lation must  spring  up  within  the  soul.  Jesus  as  the 
God-Man  who  proclaims  the  eternal  Christ-Ideal  can- 
not be  revealed  to  the  eyes  of  sense.  He  can  appeal 
to  Paul,  to  you,  to  me,  only  in  that  vision   in  which 


198  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  whole  spiritual  nature — intellect,  sensibility  and 
will — is  focused  ;  only  in  that  vision  in  which  the 
identity  in  nature  as  between  God  and  man  is  at  once 
seen  2,\i^  felt  and  willed. 

With  Saul  this  miracle  has  taken  place  suddenly, 
overwhelmingly.  He  has  seen  God.  He  is  blind  to 
all  else.  Nay,  he  knows  henceforth  that  the  "all 
else"  is  yiothiytg. — Fatal  mistake,  the  devoting  one's 
life  to  this  Noihhfg! — Saul  is  dazed,  bruised,  be- 
numbed. His  world  has  in  a  moment  turned  to  dust 
and  vapor.  With  furious,  feverish  velocity  he  has 
come  into  collision  with  the  divine  World.  He  must 
gather  himself  as  best  he  can  from  the  wreck. 

For  days  he  shuts  out  the  external  light.  It  is  in- 
tolerable. It  renews  the  old  contradiction  of  making 
him  see  as  reality  that  which  in  truth  is  nothing.  He 
would  exercise  his  newly  developed  spiritual  vision 
so  that  he  may  become  well  accustomed  to  this  divine 
light  of  Reason  that  has  sprung  up  with  such  dazzling 
splendor  in  his  soul. 

This  fairly  accomplished  he  finds  himself  utterly 
alien  to  this  world  that  but  now  had  seemed  so 
thoroughly  his  world.  He  must  foi  awhile  betake 
himself  to  an  unfamiliar  world,  to  a  world  that  is  out- 
wardly indifferent  to  him,  so  that  he  may  without 
hindrance  or  confusion  adjust  himself  to  the  newly- 
discovered  divine  World. 

Thus  for  awhile  he  goes  away  into  Arabia,  into  the 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  199 

desert,  into  a  world  that  is  outwardly  but  a  merely 
negative,  abstract  world,  in  order  that  there  he  ma)- 
with  the  less  interruption  meditate  upon  this  sudden 
revolution  in  his  life  ;  that  there  he  may  study  the 
Scriptures,  may  sound  the  depths  of  the  Messianic 
Idea  in  its  newly-revealed  eternal  import ;  may  ad- 
just himself  to  this  divine  World  which  but  now  he 
had  believed  to  be  undivine,  but  in  which  henceforth 
he  was  to  find  his  life  as  endless  approximation, 
through  self-sacriiice,  to  Godhood  ;  that  there  he  may 
learn  to  love  that  which  hitherto  had  but  called  forth 
his  hatred,  and  to  hate,  though  still  with  infinite  com- 
passion, all  that  which  thus  far  he  had  loved. 

And  now  precisely  where  death  unto  life  began, 
there  the  new  life  must  put  forth  its  first  manifes- 
tation. It  is  most  likely  that  this  will  be  at  the  risk 
of  death  ;  but  only  at  the  risk  of  death  in  a  sense  that 
is  now  no  longer  dreadful.  For  him  henceforth  death 
can  have  no  other  than  a  normal  significance.  His 
w^hole  soul  is  transfused  with  Love — that  is,  with  ab- 
solute devotion  to  the  divine  Ideal  as  itself  eternally 
realized  in  God,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  progres- 
sively realized  in  the  life  of  individual  man.  For 
him,  then,  death  can  never  mean  aught  else  than 
transition  from  a  less  to  a  more  adequate  state  of  ex- 
istence. Nothing  can  put  him  to  shame  save  his  own 
unfaithfulness  to  the  divine  Ideal  of  Life,  the  essence 
of  which  is  infinite  Love  to  the  eternal  Father  and  to 


200  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  Son  as  forever  reborn  in  the  ceaseless  process  of 
the  human  race.'  He  will  bear  all  things,  brave  all 
things  that  he  may  win  men  to  the  actual  acceptance 
of  this  divine  Ideal. 

Mosaism  had  sunk  into  hopeless  petref action.  As 
a  faultless  Pharisee  Saul,  literal  sword  in  hand,  would 
have  constrained  men  to  live  contentedly  within  this 
life-destroying  changelessness.  As  a  man  keenly 
conscious  of  his  own  infirmities,  but  also  wholly  alive 
to  the  sublime  possibilities  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
man,  this  same  Saul  now  yearns  above  everything 
else  to  persuade  men  by  loving  them,  to  convince 
men  by  reasoning  with  them,  and  thus  to  lead  them 
to  know  with  their  understanding,  with  their  hearts, 
with  their  whole  souls  the  divinity  of  humanity,  the 
boundless  lyove  of  God,  the  infinite  dignity  of  I^ife  as 
conformed  to  the  Christ-Ideal. 

Mocked,  cursed,  scourged,  imprisoned,  stoned,  be- 
headed— from  first  to  last  not  a  moment's  hesitancy  in 
presence  of  a  conceived  duty,  not  even  resentment 
save  as  against  the  hypocrisy  of  those  who  professed 
to  be  Christians  and  yet  sought  to  destroy  his  work  ! 

Through  all  this  it  is  not  to  the  present  purpose  to 
follow  this  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  We  have  only  to 
emphasize  the  contrast  between  the  religion  of  Paul 
and  that  of  Omar — the  contrast  between  the  religion 

■  That  is,  the  race  of  spiritual  or  diviuely  constituted  units 
throughout  the  entire  universe. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISxM.  201 

cf  Ferocity  and  Force  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of 
Love  and  Persuasion  on  the  other.  And  to  this  end 
we  have  only  to  add  a  summarized  view  of  the  ele- 
ments already  present  in  the  doctrine  of  Paul  which 
must  determine  the  attitude  of  Christianity,  as  repre- 
sented by  him,  to  the  scientific  interests  of  the  race. 

We  have  seen  that  Mohammed  was  constrained  to 
reject  both  Judaism  and  Christianity  and  to  restrict 
himself  essentially  to  the  narrow  type  of  his  own  na- 
tionality, to  that  simple  stage  of  spiritual  develop- 
ment in  which  for  centuries  his  own  people  had 
found  contentment  As  we  have  seen,  also,  it  was 
due  to  Omar  that  the  religion  of  Islam  was  not  merely 
extended  to  other  peoples,  but  also  that  it  was  saved 
from  sinking  into  an  insignificant  sect  among  the 
Arabs  themselves. 

But  besides  this  we  have  seen  that  Omar  was  a 
typical  Arab.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  felt 
the  influence  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  elements 
which  for  a  time  promised  to  become  real  factors  in 
Mohammed's  own  faith.  On  the  contrary  Omar's 
mind  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  idea  of  absolute 
service  to  the  one  absolute,  irresistible  Allah.  And 
this  service  he  could  conceive  of  in  no  higher  sense 
than  that  of  a  whirlwind  of  scimetars  cutting  down 
all  opposition  and  exacting  tribute  from  the  con- 
quered. 

Omar  was,   then,  let  us  repeat,   a   typical  Arab, 


202  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

And  to  this  we  may  add  :  that  as  such  his  campaigns 
were  really  little  else  than  nationalized  raiding  ex- 
peditions. Under  Omar  Mohammedanism  resolves 
itself  into  a  furious  conquering  Will  from  which  all 
the  higher  aspects  of  intelligence  and  sentiment  are 
excluded.  That  is,  whatever  we  may  say  of  the 
Koran,  the  Islamism  of  Omar  is  a  religion  of  blind 
Fatalism  whose  rewards  and  whose  penalties  are  alike 
materialistic  and  sensual. 

Contrast  with  this,  now,  the  central  conceptions  of 
Paul  and  his  method  of  presenting  those  conceptions 
to  the  people  he  sought  to  convert.  It  is  to  be  noted 
in  the  first  place  that  the  discipline  which  Paul  him- 
self had  passed  through  was  of  a  nature  to  develop  in- 
to rich  realization  his  remarkably  endowed  mind. 
Something  of  this  has  already  been  indicated.  We 
have  now  to  emphasize  the  essential  points.  He  had 
learned  the  Greek  language,  and  this  was  itself  a  rare 
training  in  the  direction  of  clear  and  subtle  judgment. 
He  had,  along  with  this,  become  acquainted  with 
much  of  Greek  literature  ;  and  had  thus  become  im- 
bued with  that  fine  breath  of  intellectual  rhythm  in- 
hering in  everything  produced  by  the  Greek  mind. 

It  is  the  Greek  spirit  especially  that  sees  things  in 
due  proportion.  The  Greek  imagination  was  rational 
and  the  Greek  reason  was  ever  conspicuous  for  its 
fine  discrimination  between  the  consistent  and  vital 
and  the  fantastic  and  unreal.     The  Greek  mind  was 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  203 

full  ot  gaiety.  But  its  gaiety  was  ever  tempered  with 
sobriety  and  moderation. 

But  Paul  was  also  a  Roman  citizen.  He  had  passed 
his  early  youth  in  a  province  of  the  Empire  suffi- 
ciently distant  from  Jerusalem  to  be  free  from  the  ex- 
treme rigidity  of  Mosaism,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be 
constantly  under  the  influence  of  Roman  discipline. 

Only  a  half-century  before  his  time  Pompeius  had 
cleared  the  seas  of  pirates,  and  Roman  legions  had 
brought  the  wild  mountain  tribes  or  Cilicia  into  sub- 
jection to  Roman  law.  Tarsus,  the  capitol  city  of 
this  province,  was  a  Greek  city  noted  for  its  commer- 
cial and  also  for  its  literary  activity.  Thus  as  a  na- 
tive of  this  city,  Paul  was  from  the  first  under  Hellenic 
influences  while  also  he  could  not  but  receive  a  deep 
impression  of  that  world-transforming  process  which 
in  his  own  time  the  Roman  power  was  but  just  com- 
pleting. 

That  7iaive  individualism  which  holds  tribe  in  iso- 
lation from  tribe,  which  knows  no  law  beyond  blood- 
relationship,  and  has  no  conception  of  God  beyond 
that  of  a  neighborhood  divinity,  all  this  world  of  ca- 
pricious provincialism  Rome  in  her  harsh,  compul- 
sory way,  had  long  been  educating  into  wholesome 
respect  for  order  based  on  rational  method,  for  order 
based  on  law  expressive  of  universal  principle,  for  an 
order  that  transformed  the  mere  dweller  in  the  se- 
cluded mountain  vale  into  a  conscious  citizen  of  the 


204  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

world.  And  if,  by  so  doing,  Rome  was  destroying 
his  faith  in  his  merely  imaginary  local  divinities  she 
was  also,  however  unconsciously,  preparing  him  for 
the  acceptance  of  the  message  of  Reason  that  was  to 
come  to  him  from  the  one  actual  God.  Nay,  this  very 
unification  of  the  world  in  the  outward  form  of  legal 
discipline  was  one  of  the  essential  threads  of  that  very 
message  of  Reason  which  God  was  already  delivering 
to  man  through  Man.  For  it  proved  to  be  the  process 
of  rationalizing  the  practical  man,  the  process  of 
teaching  human  will  this  lesson:  that  the  one  way  to 
genuine  freedom  is  through  obedience  to  the  Law  of 
Reason. 

Of  all  this  Arabia  had  remained  serenely  uncon- 
scious. Six  hundred  years  after  the  time  of  Paul, 
Omar  and  his  armies  swept  through  Syria,  through 
Persia,  through  Egypt,  without  the  shadow  of  a 
dream  as  to  the  significance  of  what  the  theoretical 
reason  of  Greece  and  the  practical  reason  of  Rome  had 
accomplished  for  the  world.  Blind  worshipers  of 
Fate,  they  will  do  their  utmost  to  blot  out  once  and 
forever  the  splendid  products  of  the  Greek  Intellect 
alike  with  those  of  the  Roman  Will.  Crude  children 
of  a  natural  desert,  they  would  turn  the  world  into  a 
spiritual  Sahara.  And  the  one  word  of  mitigation  is  : 
"They  know  not  what  they  do." 

On  the  other  hand,  Paul's  fine  mind  is  stimulated 
to  utmost  fervor  of  activity  precisely  through  the  as- 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  205 

siaiilation  of  these  elements.  He  is  a  Jew,  no  doubt. 
But  he  is  a  Jew  who  has  become  both  Hellenized  and 
Romanized.  Let  his  education  as  a  Pharisee  be  ever 
so  rigid,  he  cannot  remain  a  Jew  in  any  other  sense 
than  that  of  race  relationship.  He  has  taken  up  into 
his  consciousness  the  elements  that  in  due  course 
must  make  of  him  a  citizen  of  the  world — a  truly  uni- 
versal man  who  will  count  nothing  that  is  genuinely 
human  as  alien  to  himself. 

Recall  now  Paul's  conversion — the  moment  of  cul- 
mination in  the  fusion  of  all  these  elements  in  his 
spiritual  life — and  we  see  that  his  whole  previous 
career  has  been  a  continuous,  however  unconscious, 
process  of  preparation  for  his  work  as  the  apostle  of 
the  nations,  a  process  of  preparation  for  his  career  as 
a  proclaimer  to  all  men,  without  reference  to  race,  of 
the  sublime  doctrine  that  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
there  can  really  be  but  one  "race,"  one  type  of  spir- 
itual beings,  whether  on  this  planet  or  any  other  ; 
nay  that,  as  the  one  absolutely  perfect  Spirit,  God 
Himself  belongs  to  this  "race  ;"  and  that  thus  Man, 
as  the  created,  progressively  unfolding  Spirit,  is  the 
Son  of  God  who  is  the  uncreated,  eternally  perfect, 
and  therefore  all-inclusive  Spirit. 

And  now,  let  us  repeat  that  in  the  Greek  element 
we  have,  at  the  time  of  Paul,  the  world's  highest 
achievement  of  intellect.  In  Greek  art  and  literature 
Imagination  is  realized,  while  in  Greek  science  and 


206  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

philosophy  Thought  is  given  substantial  objective 
form.  Again,  in  the  achievements  of  the  Roman 
world  the  Will  has  become  practically  unfolded  into 
a  truly  universal  or  rational  method.  And,  finally, 
in  the  Jewish  world  the  factor  of  Sentiment  has  been 
raised  to  its  highest  and  truly  rationalized  power  as 
worship  of  the  One  God — which  worship,  through 
the  sublime  personalit}^  of  Jesus,  has  been  trans- 
figured into  the  spirit  of  divine  Love,  into  the  recip- 
rocal relationship  between  man  and  God — infinite  de- 
votion of  man  to  God,  infinite  compassion  of  God 
toward  man. 

The  conversion  of  Paul,  to  repeat,  then,  was  that 
divine  moment  in  his  life  in  which  the  Greek,  the 
Roman  and  the  Jewish  factors,  under  the  influence  of 
the  personality  of  Jesus,  became  fused  in  his  mind 
into  a  product  which  must  not  only  be  regarded  as 
absolutely  unique,  but  also  as  up  to  that  moment 
wholly  unrealized  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Jewish  prophetic  intensity,  unbending  Roman  ten- 
acity, midday  Greek  clearness,  all  these  interfuse  ; 
and  the  product  is  a  character,  a  personality  world- 
inclusive  in  its  sympathy,  world-conquering  in  its 
energy,  and  world-illumining  in  its  brilliancy. 

It  is  this  all- sided  completeness  of  the  man  that 
rendered  Paul  so  thoroughly  fitted  to  become  the 
second  Founder  of  Christianity.  It  is  this  that  en- 
abled him  to  discern  and  state  with  such  marvelous 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  207 

terseness  and  simplicity,  the  truth  of  the  Spirituality 
which  Jesus  had  insisted  upon  as  the  essence  of  the 
highest  religion.  It  is  this  discernment  of  the  genius 
of  Christianity  as  the  ultimate  Religion  of  the  Spirit, 
and  hence  as  in  its  very  nature  demanding  the  fullest 
unfolding  of  every  aspect  of  power  inhering  in  the 
ideal,  divinely  constituted  nature  of  man — it  is  this 
that  proved  so  undeniably  the  superiority  of  Paul  to 
the  other  disciples  of  Jesus.  Their  tendency  was 
rather  toward  reaction.  Left  to  them,  it  would  seem 
that  the  sublime  teachings  of  Jesus  would  at  least 
have  been  in  great  danger  of  being  overloaded  with 
and  obscured  by  mere  formalism.  It  is  Paul,  un- 
questionably, who  alone  sees  this  danger  at  all 
clearly  and  who  accordingly  exerts  all  his  genius  to 
show  that  form  is  deadly  save  so  far  as  it  is  the  or- 
ganic structure  unfolded  through  the  infinitely  vital 
functions  of  Spirit. 

If,  then,  Omar  saved  Mohammedanism  from  sink- 
ing into  a  mere  clannish  sect  among  the  Arabs,  it  also 
seems  probable  that  Paul  saved  Christianity  from 
being  dwarfed  into  a  narrow  Jewish  sect.  And 
further,  if  Omar's  personal  integrity  secures  to  him 
the  confidence  and  leadership  of  the  simple-hearted 
people  to  which  he  belonged,  so,  on  the  other  hand, 
Paul's  unselfish  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Truth  se- 
cures to  him  the  unbounded  love  of  clear-eyed  people 
even  though  belonging  to  an  alien  race. 


208  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

With  Omar  it  is  ''Koran,  tribute,  or  Sword."  With 
Paul  it  is  the  crucified  aud  risen  Christ.  By  the  side 
of  Omar's  order'  to  burn  the  library  of  Alexandria, 
place  the  splendid  appeal  to  the  Reason  in  Paul's 
^^ Epistle  to  the  Ro77ia7isf'^ 

Notice,  too,  the  deeply  significant  point  that  Islam 
secured  readiest  acceptance  among  those  peoples  who 
were  destitute  at  once  of  culture  and  of  conviction." 
Syria  was  the  crossing-point  of  all  the  great  high- 
ways of  the  ancient  world,  and  hence  the  region 
where  all  the  crude  faiths  of  that  period  met  and 
mingled  and  dissolved  by  mutual  cancellation.  Here 
and  in  Egypt  (which  had  been  conquered  and  recon- 
quered), there  was  no  serious  native  opposition  to 
Islam. 

On  the  other  hand  Paul,  once  he  had  entered  upon 
his  great  mission  to  the  nations,  appealed  first  of  all 
to  the  Greeks  ;  and  this  in  the  towns  ;  that  is,  in  the 
centers  of  intelligence.  It  is  significant,  too,  that  his 
appeals  were  made  chiefly  to  the  towns  more  or  less 
remote  from  the  conspicuous  centers  of  the  ancient 
world.     The  latter  had  already  sunk  too  deeply  in 


^I  must  remind  the  reader  that  the  chief  point  here  is  : 
What  is  characteristic  of  Omar  as  the  representative  of  Is- 
lamism  as  a  religion.  Whether  as  a  matter  of  historical  de- 
tail Omar  ever  really  issued  the  particular  order  referred  to 
matters  little.  It  is  true  (or  "historical"),  in  the  deeper 
sense  of  being  in  perfect  keeping  with  his  whole  character 
and  career. 

-Compare  Essay  on  Buddhism  and  Christianity.  Present 
vol.,  p.  236  fol. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  209 

corruption  to  regard  in  any  serious  way  the  lofty 
Ideal  in  behalf  of  which  Paul  appealed  to  them. 
Elsewhere,  where  corrupting  influences  had  been  less 
rife  the  people  retained  a  fresher,  more  vigorous 
character. 

But  there  is  still  another  point  of  special  signifi- 
cance. It  is  this  :  The  way  was  already  more  or  less 
prepared  for  Paul's  work  by  the  influence  of  Hel- 
lenized  Jews.  To  these  it  was  natural  that  Paul 
should  make  his  first  appeals.  And  at  the  beginning 
it  was  through  them  that  he  worked  upon  the  Greeks. 
And  yet  by  degrees  he  discovered  that  his  appeals 
were  responded  to  more  readily  and  more  perfectly  by 
the  ''heathen"  than  by  those  of  his  own  race.  So 
that  at  length  he  comprehended  and  openly  proclaimed 
his  mission  as  being  that  of  an  "Apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles"— that  is,  practically,  he  directed  his  efforts 
henceforth  chiefly  to  the  conversion  of  the  Greeks, 
who,  of  all  the  peoples  of  that  period,  possessed  the 
finest  intellectual  endowments,  and  who  thus  proved 
to  be  the  one  people  capable  of  appreciating  the 
subtle  arguments  and  lofty  sentiments  which  the 
genius  of  Paul  could  not  stop  short  of  presenting. 

But  besides  this  there  was  another  subtle  bond  be- 
tween Paul  and  his  Greek  hearers.  It  is  nothing  less 
than  this  :  The  Christian  Ideal  is  in  truth  just  the 
Greek  Ideal  transfigured.  It  was  an  old  tradition  of 
the  Greeks  that  men — at  least  the  men  of  their  own 


210  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

race — were  descendants  of  the  gods.  And  this  belief 
gave  them  a  high  sense  of  dignity  and  of  the  neces- 
sity of  self-restraint.  For  he  who  felt  himself  to  be 
a  descendant  of  a  God  must  also  prove  himself  worthy 
of  such  ancestry.  Hence  came  that  charming 
rhythm  of  character  represented  by  the  fine  word, 
epieikeia,  and  which  Matthew  Arnold  fondly  trans- 
lates by  the  phrase  :  "sweet  reasonableness." 

And  yet,  though  Paul  occupied  himself  chiefly  in 
attempts  to  convert  the  people  of  the  Greek  world, 
and  though  he  found  there  the  one  field  of  genuine 
success,  in  spite  of  this  it  is  still  the  fashion  to  assert 
that  only  the  "poor"  and  enslaved  responded  to  the 
early  appeals  made  in  the  name  of  Christianity. 
Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  as  Renan  has  well  in- 
sisted,^ the  population  of  the  Greek  towns  were 
people  of  intelligence  and  native  refinement.  The 
artisans  of  that  period  were  very  commonly  artists, 
both  in  their  feeling  and  in  their  work.  And  above 
all,  among  the  slaves  of  that  and  later  times  were 
numbered  people  of  all  grades  of  refinement;  among 
whom,  in  fact,  were  to  be  found  such  deeply  learned 
and  thoughtful  minds  as  Epictetus. 

While,  therefore,  it  was  mainly  to  the  "poor,"  it 
was  by  no  means  to  those  who  were  poor  in  intellect, 
by  no  means  to  those  who  lacked  power  of  discern- 


^See  his  St.  Paul  (N.  Y.  Ed.)  p.  259. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  211 

ment,  that  Paul  addressed  himself.  It  was  rather  to 
the  people  of  spiritual  vigor  and  earnestness,  people 
to  whom,  precisely  because  of  their  thoughtfulness, 
the  old  religions  had  already  grown  shadowy  and  un- 
satisfactory— it  was  to  such  people,  we  repeat,  that 
the  subtle  arguments  of  Paul  proved  convincing,  and 
to  whom  the  noble  character  of  Paul  appeared  as  a 
revelation  from  a  better  world. 

We  set  out  with  finding  certain  striking  points  of 
outward  likeness  between  Omar  and  Paul.  And  yet, 
even  from  such  brief  comparison  as  we  have  here  in- 
stituted, what  measureless  contrast  appears  between 
them  !  Everywhere  Omar  is  seen  wielding  the  iron 
rod  of  authority,  while  Paul  addresses  to  men  the 
winning  words  of  lyOve.  The  religion  of  Omar  is  the 
religion  of  sheer  materialism  and  relentless  Fate. 
That  of  Paul  is  the  religion  of  the  loftiest  Idealism 
and  hence  of  ever-expanding  Freedom  for  man. 
Omar  demands  exclusive  acceptance  of  the  all- 
suiHcient  Koran.  Paul  proclaims  the  splendor  of  the 
divine  Life  and  illustrates  his  meaning  from  the  lit- 
erature of  the  world  !  Clearly  if  Omar's  religion 
meets  with  universal  acceptance,  the  doom  of  science 
is  sealed.  Only  through  the  spread  of  the  true  Gos- 
pel of  Peace,  as  proclaimed  by  Paul  can  the  real 
scientific  interests  of  humanity  be  secured  against 
deadly  materializing  tendencies  and  inspired  with  the 
noblest  aims. 


212  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

IV. 

But  let  us  now  indicate  as  briefly  as  possible  the 
chief  points  of  contact  in  the  further  historical  devel- 
opment of  these  two  religions. 

We  have  already  noticed  the  two  factors  which 
constituted  the  central  threads,  respectively,  of  the 
two  great  pre-Christian  civilizations  lying  beyond 
Judaism  ;  namely :  the  Greek  Intellect  with  its  formu- 
lations of  Truth  in  the  fields  of  art,  science  and 
philosophy  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
Roman  Will  with  its  elaborate  formulation  of  the 
method  of  Justice,  first  abstractly  as  Law,  and  sec- 
ondly in  concrete  form  as  the  administrative  organ- 
ization of  the  State. 

We  have  now  to  add  that  it  was  in  the  assimilation 
of  both  these  factors  that  Christianity  gave  final 
proof  of  its  universality  ;  its  adaptation  to  become  the 
religion  of  the  whole  world  ;  and  the  more  in  propor- 
tion as  the  world  should  grow  in  genuine  enlighten- 
ment. 

The  revision  and  re-enactment  of  Roman  Law 
under  the  authority  of  Justinian,  was  the  explicit, 
formal  announcement  that  Christianity  had  found  its 
own  essential  spirit  substantially  expressed  on  the 
side  of  the  outer  life  of  man  in  the  legal  forms  created 
by  the  Roman  people.  It  only  remained  for  the 
Christian  spirit  to  revivify  those  forms  with  its  own 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  213 

transfigured  conception  of  the  divinity  of  humanity, 
and  thus  to  show  that  what  the  Roman  understand- 
ing had  discovered  to  be  the  universal  form  of  obli- 
gation of  every  man  toward  every  other  man,  was  in 
deepest  truth  the  obligation  which  each  man  owes  to 
himself  as  a  divinely  constituted  being. 

In  other  words,  Christianity  discovered  the  central 
secret  of  all  institutional  life  to  lie  in  that  spiritual 
and  divine  nature  of  man  by  which  all  men  are  ideally 
equal.  For  upon  this  view  of  the  nature  of  man  the 
duty  I  owe  to  my  neighbor,  to  my  fellow- citizen,  is 
due  to  him  on  the  ground  of  that  universal  ideal  na- 
ture which  is  common  to  him  and  to  me  alike.  That 
is,  my  duty  is  to  mail  as  man,  and  therefore  to  all 
men,  including  myself. 

Thus,  any  specific  duty  I  owe  to  another  is  only  a 
particular  form  of  the  demand  which  my  own  nature 
makes  upon  me  to  do  honor  to  the  Divine  in  the 
Human.  Hence,  when  I  perform  ray  duty  to  another, 
I  also  in  that  fact  and  in  that  far,  realize  my  own 
right. 

There  is  7io  reasonable  sacrifice  I  can  make  that  is  not 
in  truth  for  my  own  good.  From  which  it  is  evident 
that  though  all  institutional  forms  appear  to  the  un- 
trained mind  to  be  arbitrary,  external  powers  which 
are  ever  encroaching  upon  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  restricting  his  liberty,  yet  through  the 
maturing  of  reflection  and  the  clearer  recognition  of 


214  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  fundamental  nature  of  man  the  individual  must  at 
length  become  aware  that  those  same  institutions  are 
but  the  appropriate,  progressive  expression  of  the 
universal,  divine  nature  of  humanity,  and  hence  that 
they  are  indispensable  means  toward  the  realization 
of  that  nature  in  his  own  individual  life. 

When  I  come  to  rightly  understand  Law,  then,  I 
find  it  to  be  but  the  outer  form  of  what  in  truth  is  an 
essential,  nay  the  inmost,  demand  of  my  own  ulti- 
mate nature. 

Such,  indeed,  is  the  essential  significance  of  the 
truly  divine  Law  which  Jesus  announced  :  "Thou 
shalt  love  Wiy  neighbor  as  thyself;'^  and  :  '-Do  unto 
others  as  you  would  have  others  do  nnio y 021.''^ 

In  the  light  of  these  simple,  yet  infinitely  profound, 
principles  all  institutions  are  seen  to  be  but  the  or- 
ganic expression  of  the  divinely  constituted  human 
spirit  as  it  slowly  unfolds  itself  into  concrete  realiza- 
tion in  the  course  of  the  history  of  the  world. 

Jesus  did,  indeed,  declare  that  his  Kingdom  is  'not 
^this  world,"  but  every  syllable  he  uttered  contrib- 
uted to  the  perfect  shaping  of  that  Kingdom  for  this 
world — that  is,  the  rendering  perfectly  clear  its  ab- 


^In  this,  as  is  well-knowu,  Jesus  but  gave  positive  charac- 
ter to  what  was  already  current  in  negative  form.  *'Hillel 
impresses  upon  a  Gentile,  as  the  sum  of  the  Law,  What  is 
hateful  to  thyself  do  not  to  thy  neighbor— an  interpretation 
of  the  Law  which  was  at  that  time  so  generally  current,  that 
we  find  it  in  both  Jesus  and  Philo."  Keim.  Jesus  0/ 
Nazara  (Trans.)  I,  337. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  215 

solutely  spiritual  nature  as  the  one  vital  principle 
whose  functional  activity  must  determine  every  as- 
pect in  the  development  of  the  structural  form  of  any 
really  rational  world. 

Thus  it  is  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  that  Chris- 
tianity should  claim  as  its  own  by  absolute  right 
whatever  rational  forms  the  human  world  has  ever 
developed.  The  divine  Sonship  of  man  is  the  cen- 
tral principle  of  Christianity.  So  far  as  man's  acts 
are  reasonable  they  already  pertain  to  the  Kingdom 
of  Truth  ;  and  in  just  so  far  is  the  idea  of  the  divine 
Sonship  of  man  realized  on  the  earth. 

But  not  only  had  Christianity  shown  its  assimi- 
lative, transfiguring  power  in  respect  of  whatever  is 
fundamental  in  external  institutional  forms  ;  it  had 
also  proven  itself  equally  capable  of  assimilating  and 
transfiguring  the  inner  products  of  the  most  vigorous 
intellectual  life.  While  Roman  law  was  becoming 
infused  with  the  Christian  spirit,  the  foremost  grad- 
uates of  the  Greek  schools  of  Alexandria  were  finding 
the  one  worthy  use  for  their  dialectic  in  developing 
the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Christianity  into  ex- 
plicit logical  form. 

Had  Plato,  with  unaided  human  intellect,  dis- 
covered those  same  truths  which  it  had  been  sup- 
posed could  come  to  man  only  through  a  miracu- 
lously given  divine  Revelation?  The  thought  of  it 
must   have  been  like  a  breeze  from  the  mountains. 


216  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

At  any  rate  the  fundamental  identity  of  conceptions 
was  in  many  respects  undeniable. 

The  conclusion  finally  reached  was  indeed  that 
Plato  must  have  had  access  to  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 
But  however  it  might  be  explained  the  identity  was 
the  fundamental  point.  Surely  the  method  by  which 
Plato  confirmed  to  the  Reason  what  Revelation  had 
presented  rather  to  the  Imagination,  could  not  but  be 
itself  a  divine  agency.  And  so  Christianity  accepted 
fearlessly  the  fullest  and  freest  activity  of  the  intellect 
as  a  necessary  factor  in  her  own  ultimate  develop- 
ment. So  far  from  wishing  to  burn  the  Alexandrian 
library,  Christianity  sought  only  to  spiritually  con- 
sume and  assimilate  the  best  thought  gathered  in  its 
volumes. 

All  this,  indeed,  could  not  but  lead  to  grave  dis- 
sension. From  Antioch,  the  Asiatic  center,  came 
Arius  with  his  clear,  but  by  no  means  profound,  con- 
ception of  the  divine  Sonship.  On  the  other  hand  it 
was  the  true  Greek,  Athanasius,  who  with  his  subtle 
dialectic,  States  this  doctrine  with  marvelous  depth 
and  adequacy,  and  yet  also  in  a  form^  that  has  proven 


^Precisely  in  what  form  he  stated  the  argument  in  support 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  not  known.  "Under  his 
name  the  Symbolum  Quicunque,  of  much  later  [perhaps 
early  part  of  ninth  century],  and  probably  of  French,  origin, 
has  found  universal  acceptance  in  the  Latin  Church,  and  has 
maintained  itself  to  this  day  in  Iivin<5  use  "  Schaff.  His- 
tory of  the  Christian  Church.  New  Ed.,  Ill,  891.  Comp,  also 
pp.  695  and  1034. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  217 

the  despair  of  most  theologians  from  that  day  to  this. 

Indeed  for  most  of  them  (seeing  their  loss  of  dia- 
lectic skill),  the  only  really  frank  word  of  justification 
for  its  acceptance  must  be  a  desperate  repetition  of 
the  brave  words  of  Tertullian  :  Credo  qiiia  absicrdum.^ 

For  the  weal  of  Christianity,  however  much  for  the 
woe  of  some  of  its  individual  votaries,  the  speculative 
habit  of  mind  became  once  for  all  at  an  early  period 
an  organic  phase  of  the  Christian  consciousness.  So 
that  for  every  truly  thoughtful  Christian.. the  motto 
must  henceforth  be,  as  Anselm  afterward  expressed  it  : 
Credo  iit  intelliga77i;  that  is,  Faith  is  but  the  first 
step  toward  knowledge. 

At  length  Islam  too  was  offered  to  the  Greeks — in 
Omar's  fashion.  But  in  the  minds  of  the  Greeks 
Paul's  message  had  already  been  in  process  of  assimi- 
lation for  six  hundred  years.  During  that  period  not 
only  had  the  Christian  faith  become  the  accepted  faith 
of  the  whole  Roman  world ;  it  had  also  given  fullest 
demonstration  of  its  own  genuine,  vital  universality — 
a  demonstration  consisting  in  this  :  that  everywhere 
the  most  deeply  earnest  as  well  as  most  keenly  critical 
minds  found  in  the  Christ-Ideal  that  which  proved 
satisfying  to  the  inmost  needs  of  the  human  soul. 

That  is,  Christianity  had  accomplished  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  conquest  of  the  Roman  world.     Thus 


^But  compare  above,  p.  124.     Note. 


218  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

it  was  that  when  Omar's  Gospel  of  Scimetars  was  pro- 
claimed in  the  usual  manner  before  the  gates  of  Con- 
stantinople, all  the  energies  of  the  Graeco-Roman 
world  were  aroused  in  self-defense.  And  the  result 
was  like  a  whirlwind  recoiling  before  a  mountain 
wall. 

The  Arabs  were  never  to  take  Constantinople. 
Not  until  eight  hundred  years  later,  when  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  Greeks  had  become  a  by- word  and  when 
the  Arabs  themselves  had  given  way  as  the  cham- 
pions of  Islam  to  a  still  wilder  and  more  reckless  race, 
was  the  Crescent  to  take  the  place  of  the  Cross  above 
the  splendid  temple  of  St.  Sophia — a  temple  from  that 
day  forth  no  longer  to  be  devoted  to  the  service  of 
Divine  Wisdom.^ 

But  Omar's  plan  for  the  conquest  of  Europe  to  the 
faith  of  Islam,  included  more  than  the  assault  upon 
Constantinople  from  the  East.  Another  invasion 
was  simultaneously  made  by  the  circuitous  way  of  the 
Southern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  ,[n  short  the 
deliberate  strategic  purpose  appears  to  have  been  to 
attack  the  Christian  world  at  the  same  time  both  on 
its  Eastern  and  on  its  Western  frontier,  and  thus,  by 
driving  it  in  upon  itself,  to  crush  it  out  of  existence. 

Along  with  this  it  is  a  deeply  significant  fact  that 


'Unless  Christendom  should  yet  awake  out  of  her  sleep  of 
shame,  induced  by  wealth-and-power  intoxication,  as  begins 
to  seem  dimly  possible  in  these  latter  days. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  219 

no  shadow  of  a  thought  of  assimilating  any  of  the 
institutional  forms  of  the  Grseco- Roman  world  seems 
ever  to  have  occurred,  even  for  a  moment,  to  the 
mind  of  a  Moslem.  Islam  was  alread)^  complete. 
Nothing  but  its  corruption  could  follow  the  fusion 
with  it  of  these  foreign  elements.  Not  to  assimilate 
them,  but  to  sweep  them  out  of  existence  was  the 
mission  of  Islam. 

Thus  the  spiritual  fate  of  the  world  depended  upon 
the  result  of  these  furious  invasions  of  Christian 
Europe  by  Mohammedan  Asia. 

What  the  final  result  was  is  sufficientl}' well  known. 
In  Africa  the  invasion  was  delayed  for  a  half-century 
by  the  imperfectly  Romanized  and  Christianized  pro- 
vinces. Then  Spain,  which  from  the  earliest  times 
was  peopled  by  a  mixed  multitude,  which  had  been 
subjected  to  conquest  by  the  Carthagenians,  and  again 
by  the  Romans,  and  again  by  the  Goths  in  the  name 
of  Rome,  and  again  had  been  made  the  camping- 
ground  of  the  Vandals  on  their  leisurely  way  to 
Africa — Spain  which  had  thus  been  harried  for  cen- 
turies and  which  had  passed  from  the  religion  of  the 
Druids  to  the  worship  of  Moloch,  and  from  the  wor- 
ship of  Moloch  to  the  worship  of  Jupiter,  and  from  the 
worship  of  Jupiter  to  Arian  Christianity,  and  again 
from  the  Arian  to  the  Trinitarian  form  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith^Spain  with  such  a  history  could  not  for  a 


220  CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

moment  be  expected  to  offer  successful  resistance  to 
the  furious  assaults  of  the  Saracens. 

From  her  geographical  situation  Spain  had  been 
the  crossing-point  of  the  great  highways  of  the  Wes- 
tern nations  as  Syria  had  been  for  the  nations  of  the 
East.  But  against  this  last  invasion  in  the  interests 
of  the  supreme  religion  of  Fanaticism,  Christianized 
Spain  was  at  length  to  react  with  amazing  vigor  and 
persistence.  Nay,  in  this  reaction  Spain  was  herself 
to  become  the  evangel  of  fanatical  superstition  in  the 
name  of  the  one  absolute  religion  of  Reason,  the  soul 
of  that  Christian  orthodoxy  whose  cherished  instru- 
mentality was  that  of  the  Inquisition. 

Through  seven  hundred  years  of  struggle  with  Is- 
lam Spain  became  more  than  Mohammedan  in  her 
method  of  defending  and  propagating  Christianity. 
And  yet  the  seven-hundred-years  battle  of  Spain  with 
Islam  is  a  phase  of  the  world's  history  by  no  means  to 
be  despised.  That  long  struggle  was  in  fact  neces- 
sary to  confirm  the  results  of  the  great  battle  of  Tours. 

It  is  the  battle  of  Tours,  indeed,  that  constitutes  the 
chief  focus  of  interest  in  the  struggle  between  Chris- 
tianity and  Mohammedanism.  It  takes  place  in 
Gaul,  that  one  of  the  modern  countries  which  came 
soonest  and  most  thoroughly  under  settled,  Roman 
discipline.  It  is  here  especially,  also,  that  the  Ro- 
mans first  took  up  the  attitude  of  a  civilizing  power. 
Elsewhere,  to  the  East,  where  civilization  was  already 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  221 

relatively  matured,  Rome  could  assume  superiority 
only  in  a  legal  and  administrative  sense.  Here  in 
Gaul,  on  the  other  hand,  she  added  to  her  task  that 
of  intellectual  discipline. 

It  has  been  well  said^  that  close  upon  the  foot-steps 
of  the  Roman  legionary  followed  the  Greek  school- 
master. And  it  is  to  be  added  that,  following  the 
Greek  school-master,  came  at  length  the  Christian 
missionary  (himself,  betimes,  a  well-trained  Greek 
teacher),  and  proceeded  unwearyingly  in  the  task  of 
fusing  the  spirit  of  Roman  legality  as  expressive  of 
regulated  will,  with  the  method  of  Greek  intellectu- 
ality, in  the  fire  of  Christian  sentiment  raised  to  the 
intensity  of  divine  Love. 

Thus  in  Gaul,  at  the  time  of  the  Mohammedan  in- 
vasion, the  Roman,  the  Celt,  and  the  Teuton  had  be- 
come elevated  to  the  plane  of  universal  manhood. 
And  upon  this  basis  they  joined  together  as  brethren 
in  mutual  defense  of  the  infinite,  divine  Ideal  which 
had  become  the  clear  representation  of  all  that  life 
could  mean  to  them.  For  they  already  felt  that  in 
that  Ideal  there  lies  the  perfect  foreshadowing  of 
every  factor  that  goes  to  complete  a  human  soul  and 
thus  to  raise  it  to  the  rank  of  godhood. 

And  so,  once  more,  the  Christian  world  proved  it- 
self to  possess  in  concrete  realization  so  much  of  that 


ifiy  Mr.  Freeman,  if  I  remember  rightly,  though  I  cannot 
now  give  the  exact  reference. 


221  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

divine  Righteousness  which  is  "like  the  great  moun- 
tains" as  sufficed  to  break  the  force  of  the  plundering 
whirlwind  that  had  sprung  up  in  the  desert  and 
which  threatened  to  sweep  from  the  earth  all  ele- 
ments of  growth  and  thus  to  make  the  desert  uni- 
versal. 

V. 

And  yet  much  has  been  said  of  the  rich  civilization 
of  the  Mohammedans  in  Spain,  of  their  refinement 
and  elegance  of  life,  of  their  superiority  in  science 
and  philosophy. 

This  view  is  well  expressed  by  Emanuel  Deutch.^ 
"The  Phoenicians,"  he  says,  "came  to  Europe  as 
traders  ;  the  Jews  as  fugitives  or  captives  ;  the  Arabs 
entered  it  as  conquerors.  They  inaugurated  a  reign 
of  science,  of  poetr}^  of  learning,  of  culture,  such  as 
had  not  been  seen  since  the  golden  days  of  Hellas  ;  a 
culture  which  has  left  its  traces  upon  Europe  to  this 
day,  and  which  then  shone,  the  only  light  in  utter 
darkness,  over  a  people  brilliant  in  chivalry  and 
song,  full  of  noble  courtesy  and  of  simple  piety.  The 
Jews  furthered  the  work  of  Catholic  human  culture  : 
the  Arabs  inaugurated  modern  science.  The  day  of 
the  fall  of  Granada  was  one  of  the  saddest  days  in  his- 
tory." 


^Literary  Remains,    p.  169. 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  223 

Almost  immediately  preceding  this  statement  the 
same  author  declares  that  :  "The  new-born  Arabs, 
carrying  everything  before  them,  and  appropriating 
to  themselves  the  learning  of  all  the  peoples  they  con- 
quered in  the  East  and  West,  made  Jewish  literature 
what  it  now  is,  kaleidoscopic,  cosmopolitan." 

Just  what  peoples  of  any  high  degree  of  learning 
the  Arabs  ever  succeeded  in  conquering,  it  might 
prove  a  little  puzzling  to  discover.  On  the  other 
hand  it  is  not  to  be  pretended  that  brilliant  and  val- 
uable results  were  not  achieved  b}"  both  Jews  and 
Mohammedans  in  Spain  during  the  Moslem  occu- 
pancy of  that  country. 

But  the  essential  question  for  us  to  consider  at  this 
point  is  that  of  the  relation  of  the  Mohammedan  re- 
ligion as  such  to  the  modern  spirit  of  progress.  And 
historical  impartiality  compels  the  conclusion  that 
this  religion  as  such  has  continued  to  be  what  it  was 
from  the  first  under  Omar — that  is,  absolutely  inimi- 
cal to  science,  to  freedom  of  thought  in  any  form,  to 
the  whole  essential  organic  process  of  institutional 
life  by  which  alone  the  human  Spirit  can  attain,  or 
even  approximate,  maturity 

Few  facts,  indeed,  are  more  familiar  in  the  history 
of  philosophy  than  this  :  that  in  the  realm  of  phi- 
losophy, properly  speaking,  the  Semitic  race  has 
never  shown  that  deeper  originality  consisting  in  the 
capacity  to  create  a  system— that  is,  in  the  power  to 


224  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

trace  out  in  connected  form  the  organic  process  in- 
herent in,  as  the  vital  principle  of,  all  true  thought. 
And  the  obverse  side  of  this  statement  is  :  that  the 
Semitic  race  has  also  and  equally  proven  deficient  in 
originative  power  in  the  field  of  science — that  is,  in 
the  power  to  trace  out  in  connected  form  the  organic 
processes  inherent  in  the  world  of  things.  And  this 
latter  statement  is  the  obverse  side  of  the  former  be- 
cause the  process  of  things,  in  its  ultimate  signifi- 
cance, and  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  one  and  the  same  with 
the  essential  method  of  Thought. 

No  doubt  the  Semitic  mind  has  accomplished  great 
things  in  the  history  of  human  intelligence.  But  its 
achievements  here  have  been  in  the  field  of  poetry,  of 
prophecy,  not  in  the  field  of  speculative,  or  even  in 
that  of  experimental,  inquiry. 

It  may  be  readily  granted,  indeed,  that  the  defects 
indicated  have  been  due  not  so  much  to  a  lack  of  ca- 
pabilit}'  as  to  a  lack  of  deep-reaching  interest  in  such 
modes  of  truth-seeking.  As  Sprenger  has  expressed 
it  with  reference  to  one  division  of  this  race  :  **When 
the  Arabs  reflect  upon  higher  objects  they  think 
clearly  and  logically,  but  they  live  within  the  da}- 
and  even  the  more  gifted  busy  themselves  very  little 
with  such  speculations."^ 

Granted  that  such  is  the  explanation  the  fact  can- 


^Lehen  und  Lehre  des  Moh.    III.   (Pref.)  p.  IX. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  225 

not  reasonably  be  denied  that  "Philosophy  has  never 
been  more  than  an  episode  in  the  history  of  the  Arab 
spirit."^  Indeed,  as  M.  Renan  goes  on  to  say,  with 
the  Arabs  the  term  philosophy  does  not  signify  "the 
search  for  truth  in  general,  but  a  sect,  a  particular 
school,  Greek  philosophy  and  those  who  study  it. 
In  so  far  as  the  Arabs  have  impressed  a 
national  character  upon  their  religious  creations, 
upon  their  poetry,  upon  their  architecture,  upon  their 
theological  sects,  in  like  degree  have  they  shown 
little  originality  in  their  attempt  to  continue  Greek 
philosophy.  We  affirm,  rather,  that  it  is  only  by  a 
very  deceiving  ambiguit}'  that  the  name,  Arab  Phi- 
losophy, is  applied  to  a  series  of  works  undertaken  by 
way  of  reaction  against  Arabism,  in  thOvSe  parts  of  the 
Mussulman  Empire  furthest  removed  from  the  [Arab] 
peninsula — Samarkand,  Bokhara,  Cordova,  Morocco- 
This  philosophy  is  written  iji  Arabic,  because  this 
idiom  had  become  the  learned  and  sacred  language  of 
all  Mussulman  countries  ;  that  is  all.  The  true  Arab 
genius,  characterized  by  the  poetr}-  of  the  Kasidas 
and  the  eloquence  of  the  Koran,  was  absolutely  averse 
{aritipathique^  to  Greek  philosophy.  Shut  up,  like 
all  Semitic  peoples,  in  the  narrow  circle  of  lyrism  and 
prophetism,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Arabic  peninsula 
have  never  possessed  the  least  idea  of  that  which  can 


-Renan.    Averroes  et.  UAverroisme.    p.  89. 


226  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

be  called  science  or  ratio aalism.  It  was  when  the 
Persian  spirit  (represented  by  the  dynasty  of  the 
Abbasides),  overbore  the  Arab  spirit  that  Greek 
philosophy  penetrated  into  Islam. "^ 

Along  with  this  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  more 
than  two  hundred  3'ears  before  the  accession  of  the 
Abbasides  the  dying  embers  of  Greek  philosophy  had 
been  scattered  through  the  East,  and  that  this  w^as 
caused  by  the  order  of  Justinian  closing  the  schools 
of  Alexandria.  As  we  have  already  seen,  Christianity 
owed  much  to  these  schools  during  the  period  of  their 
earlier  vigor.  Now  in  their  decline  it  seemed  that 
they  threatened  this  religion  with  more  or  less  grave 
danger. 

It  may  be,  too,  that  this  danger  was  not  altogether 
imaginar5^  For  with  the  decline  of  originality  there 
was  inevitably  an  increase  in  arbitrary  and  fantastic 
interpretation  of  "authorities  ;"  and  to  close  the 
schools  was  to  protect  the  Church  (in  which  the  first 
great  constructive  period  of  thought  had  passed), 
from  the  danger  of  being  led  into  the  caricaturing  of 
its  doctrines  through  further  following  of  a  guide  that 
once  was  altogether  clear-eyed,  but  which  at  length 
had  grown  purblind. 

Nevertheless,  in  their  dispersion  the  members  of 
these  schools  carried  with  them  the  works  of  their 


'Op,  Cit.    p.   90,     See  also   his  Studies    (cited   above),  p. 
238. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  227 

predecessors,  including  those  of  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
Thus  it  happened  that  through  translations  these 
great  thinkers  came  to  be  known  to  such  philosophic 
minds  as  were  to  be  found  in  the  East. 

At  Bagdad,^  especially,  scientific  studies  greatly 
flourished  for  a  time,  under  the  encouragement  of  the 
Abbassides — that  is,  as  we  have  seen,  under  a  dynasty 
that  was  Persian  in  spirit. 

It  was  in  the  tenth  century  that  the  influence  of 
these  studies  began  to  be  felt  in  Spain.  The  Chalif 
Hakem  initiated  a  brilliant  period  of  liberal  studies 
there  which,  however,  lasted  but  two  centuries,  and 
not  without  serious  reactions  and  more  or  less  pro- 
longed interruptions. 

Nevertheless  in  the  reign  of  Hakem  "liberalism" 
became  the  fashion — literally  "the  rage,"  as  one 
might  almost  be  justified  in  saying.  Of  all  this  M. 
Renan  has  given  us  a  very  seductive  picture — a  pic- 
ture in  which  Andalusia  appears  as  a  charming  para- 
dise both  without  and  within.  "In  this  privileged 
corner  of  the  world  the  taste  for  science  and  fine 
things  had  established,  in  the  tenth  century,  a  tol- 
erance of  which  modern  times  can  scarcely  present  us 
an  example.  Christians,  Jews,  Moslems  spoke  the 
same  language,  sang  the  same  songs,  participated  in 


^Compare  Erdmaun.     History  of  Philosophy   (Trans.),    I, 
360. 


22S  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

the  same  literary  and  scientific  studies.  All  the 
barriers  which  hold  men  asunder  had  fallen  down  ; 
all  took  pait  with  one  accord  in  the  work  of  a  com- 
mon civilization.  The  mosques  of  Cordova,  where  stu- 
dents were  counted  bj^  thousands,  became  the  active 
centers  of  philosophic  and  scientific  studies."^ 

And  yet  upon  reflection  one  cannot  but  recognize 
the  inexorable  fact  that  all  this  is  irreconcilable  with 
the  fundamental  principle,  alike  of  Mohammedanism, 
of  Judaism  and  of  Christianit}-. 

As  for  Mohammedanism,  its  very  conception  of  the 
Koran  as  a  literal  transcript  of  the  one  eternal  Book 
preserved  in  heaven  and  containing  all  truth,  was  ab- 
solutely irreconcilable,  not  only  with  speculative  in- 
quiries of  any  kind  whatever,  but  also  with  an}-  other 
form  of  faith  whatever.  On  the  other  hand  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  w^as  by  no  means  as  yet  so  clearly 
defined  but  that  the  spirit  of  complaisance  might 
easily  obscure  the  radical  differences  between  the  two 
faiths. 

If  extreme  distance  reduces  a  star  to  a  mere  ab- 
stract point  of  light,  so  a  candle-flame  may  be 
brought  so  near  as  to  dazzle  and  cause  the  loss  of  all 
sense  of  proportion.  It  was  needful  for  the  purposes 
of  accurate  definition  that  those  faiths  should  be  held 
well  asunder.     True   Christian  tolerance  is  not  one 


' A verroes  et  L" Averroisme.     p .  4 . 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  229 

and  the  same  either  with  blindness  or  with  indiffer- 
ence as  to  error.  The  falling  down  of  "all  barriers 
that  hold  men  asunder"  is  far  from  being  necessaril}' 
an  evidence  of  either  intellectual  or  moral  progress  on 
the  part  of  the  human  race. 

In  fact  it  was  not  to  be  forgotten  that  Christianity 
and  Mohammedanism  had  offered  themselves  to  men, 
each  as  claiming  to  be  an  adequate  and  therefore  final 
interpretation  of  the  world  and  of  man.  Mere  good 
fellowship,  the  sinking  all  differences  in  simple  Edenic 
placidity  of  agreeable  feeling  will  never  bring  the 
world  to  perfection.  Differences,  and  most  of  all  the 
deep-lying  differences,  must  be  felt  and  seen,  nay, 
they  must  also  be  willed^  even  though  in  this  process 
the  world  quiver  to  its  center  with  pain. 

It  is  precisely  this  necessity  that  constitutes  the 
germ  and  ground  of  existence  of  all  fanaticism.  There 
are,"  in  fact,  countless  degrees  and  kinds  of  fanaticism. 
Happy  he  whose  "  fanaticism  "  proves  to  be  but  the 
fiery  conviction  of  essential  Truth,  and  therefore  of 
abiding  Actuality  ! 

No  doubt,  as  M.  Renan  remarks,  "religious  fanat- 
icism was  the  fatal  cause  which,  with  the  Moslems, 
smothered  the  finest  germs  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment ;"^  just  as  it  is  religious  fanaticism  which  in  the 
Christian  world  has  sought  more  or  less  persistently 


^Op.  cit.    p.  4. 


230  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

to  crush  out  all  freedom  of  thought,  especially  as  ap- 
plied to  questions  of  the  origin,  nature,  and  course  of 
historical  development  of  the  Christian  religion  itself. 

But  no  less  is  it  the  fanaticism  of  "liberalism"  to 
chant  a  Te  Diabolitm  over  an  age  or  a  coterie  that  has 
lost  all  reverence  for  sacred  things,  and  to  whom 
therefore  no  sacred  things  exist — as  M.  Renan  him- 
self seems  in  some  danger  of  doing  in  his  reference  to 
'*  the  blasphemy  of  the  Three  Impostors,"^  or  as  Dr. 
Draper  has  done  only  too  unmistakably  in  his  trium- 
phant "  demonstration  "  that  Heaven  vanished  quite 
away  upon  the  making  known  of  the  Copernican 
theory  of  the  Solar  System. - 

It  may  be  that  here,  too,  ^^  Refuier  c' est  faire 
connaitre,''''  to  refute  is  to  publish.  For  if  Heaven 
has  "vanished"  before  the  discoveries  of  science,  it 
has  "  vanished  "  only  as  the  poor,  limited,  local  ob- 
ject of  the  more  or  less  grossly  sensuous  imagination, 
and  in  so  doing  has  expanded  into  infinitely  rich 
reality  for  the  essentially  spiritual  nature  of  man. 


^Op.  oit.  p.  292  fol. 

-Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  Vol.  II,  Ch.  viii,  con- 
cluding part,  on  "Progress  of  Man  from  the  Anthropocentric 
Ideas  to  the  Discovery  of  His  True  Position  and  Insignifi- 
cance in  the  Universe."  Evidently  human  intelligence  is 
just  significant  enough  to  comprehend  the  infinite  signifi- 
cance of  the  Universe — and  thus  to  know  its  own  utter  insig- 
nificance !  A  miraculous  "finite,"  truly,  which  is  driven  to 
the  recognition  of  its  own  utter  and  hopeless  finitude  through 
the  positive  discovery  and  clear  comprehension  of  the  true 
and  actual  Infinite  ! 

'Renan,  Averroes,  p.  281. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  231 

Indeed,  in  our  hunting  down  of  superstition  we  are 
in  danger  of  falling  into  a  still  worse  superstition — 
that  of  dreading  antagonisms  and  of  exalting  "lib- 
eralism" until  all  differences,  all  substantial,  specific 
characteristics  are  set  aside,  leavingusa  world  utterly 
empty  and  desolate.  Such  "liberalism,"  if  given  full 
scope  in  science,  would  cancel  all  distinctions  be- 
tween Chemistry  and  Geology,  between  Geology  and 
Physics,  between  Physics  and  Astronomy,  between 
the  physical  and  the  moral  sciences  ;  that  is,  it  would 
make  an  end  of  science  and  blot  out  all  trace  of 
"Intellectual  Development,"  in  Europe  or  elsewhere. 

This,  essentially,  was  the  danger  that  threatened  at 
Cordova  during  the  reign  of  Hakem  II. — a  danger  to 
which  "religious  fanaticism"  shortly  put  an  end. 
Such  would  seem  to  have  been  the  historical  fact 
rather  than  that  smothering  of  "the  finest  germs  of 
intellectual  development"  which  M.  Renan  fancies 
to  have  been  the  fact. 

And  not  only  so,  but,  on  the  Christian  side  also, 
"religious  fanaticism"  proved  in  a  very  important 
sense  to  be  a  saving  clause  rather  than  a  destroying 
element.  In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries, 
after  the  crusades  had  brought  the  East  and  the  West 
face  to  face  in  a  relation  beginning  in  the  mere 
ferocity  of  religious  fanaticism  and  culminating  in 
mutual  admiration — military,  scientific,  social,  and 
even  religious — it  seemed  that  the  people  of  Europe 


232  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

had  "arrived  by  all  ways  at  the  idea  of  comparative 
religions,  that  is  to  say,  at  indifference  and  ma- 
terialism."^ 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  abstract,  negative  result  of 
"indifference  and  materialism"  toward  which  philoso- 
phy as  pursued  by  Mohammedans,  has  ever  infallibly 
tended.  Their  crude,  dry  monotheism  could  not  but 
culminate  in  what  Sprenger  aptly  calls  the  soul- 
killing  i^Geist-todteiide^  doctrine  of  Predestination. 

So  frankly  do  they  accept  this  doctrine,  indeed,  that 
they  '  seldom  hesitate  to  admit  the  consequences  of 
their  premises,  and  hence  most  of  them  ascribe  sin  to 
God."- 

Surely  if  anything  could  "smother  the  finest  germs 
of  intellectual  development,"  it  must  be  precisel}^  this 
"soul-killing"  doctrine  that  the  soul's  question,  alike 
with  the  answer  thereto,  is  but  the  manifestation  of  an 
arbitrary,  all-decreeing  V.^ill  which  thus  must  prove 
to  be  simply  a  blind,  resistless  Destiny  ! 


^Renan,  Averroes^  p.  2S2. 

-Leben  und  Lchre  des  iMo/i^  II,  306.  And  on  the  following 
page  he  adds :  "Wir  finden  schon  fri'ih  Spuren  des  Priides- 
tiuationsglaubens  in  Koran.  Uas  Schicksal  jedes  Meuschen 
ist  nicht  nur  vorher  bestimmt,  sondern  es  ist  auch  schrift- 
lich  vorhanden;  und  das  Leben  verhlilt  sich  zu  dieser  Schrift 
wie  ein  Schauspiel  zum  Text  des  Dichters.  Allein  diese 
Lehre  erscheint  in  Mohammad's  Inspirationen,  als  etwas 
Unorganisches,  Aeusseres,  iind  es  wird  daher  ebenso  oft  be- 
hauptet,  dass  Engel  die  Thaten  des  Menschen  aufzeichnen, 
aber  erst  nachdem  sie  geschehen  sind.  Wo  immer  Mo- 
hammad seine  eigeuen  Empfindungen  ausdriickt,  erkennter, 
besonders  in  der  friihesten  Periode,  die  Freiheit  des  mensch- 
lichen  Willens  an." 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  233 

Thus,  however  true  Hegel's  assertion  may  be  that 
**Man  is  a  born  metaphj^sician,"  and  that  only  ani- 
mals are  free  from  speculative  difficulties,  it  is  also 
evident  that  in  men  who  seriously  accept  a  faith  like 
that  of  Islam  the  speculative  instinct  itself,  rather 
than  the  "finest  germs  of  intellectual  development,"^ 
must  inevitably  be  stifled,  and  that  hopelessly. 

Indeed,  if  such  men  ever  come  to  make  use  of 
philosophy  at  all,  it  must  be  for  the  infinitely  para- 
doxical purpose  of  destroying  philosophy.  And  this 
proves  to  have  been  the  historical  fact  in  the  intellec- 
tual career  of  Islam.  For  a  time  Greek  philosophy 
seems  to  be  taken  up  with  enthusiasm  into  the  very 
life  of  this  religion.  And  yet  in  the  outcome  it  is 
found  that  this  philosophic  movement,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  is  primarily  a  reaction  against  the  re- 
ligion of  Islam  itself,  while  in  a  secondary  sense  it  is 
a  process  of  forging  weapons  against  the  intellectual 
aggressiveness  of  Christianity.^  We  repeat  that  Arab 
philosophy  is  so  only  in  name.  In  spirit  it  is  Persian. 
And  now  when  we  consider  that  Mohammedanism 
established  itself  as  a  religious  movement  only  by  de- 
liberately restricting  itself  to  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
Arab  spirit,  we  cannot  be  in  the  least  surprised  that 
the  attempt  not  merely  to  engraft  philosophy  upon  an 
anti-philosophic  faith,  but  also  to  do  this  in  the  spirit 


^Erdmann.    Op.  Cit.,  I,  359-60. 


234  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

of  au  alien  and  conquered  people,  should  find  itself 
opposed  by  the  fiercest  "religious  fanaticism." 

Kven  Averroes  (1120-1198),  the  chief  of  Moham- 
medan Philosophers,  lived  a  more  or  less  precarious 
life — sometimes  inofficial  position,  sometimes  in  dis- 
grace, and  again  practicing  medicine.  Everywhere 
he  "busied  himself  with  philosophy,  and  thereby 
brought  upon  himself  the  hatred  and  persecution  of 
his  countrymen."^ 

Under  such  conditions  the  fate  of  philosophy  can- 
not be  doubtful.  Finding  no  response  in  the  sur- 
rounding world  it  must  turn  upon  and  consume  itself. 

This  result  was  reached  by  the  Mohammedans  of 
the  Bast  more  than  a  century  earlier  than  by  those 
of  the  West.  Haiployed  as  a  teacher  at  Bagdad  dur- 
ing the  last  decade  of  the  eleventh  century,  the 
philosopher  Algazel  became  disgusted  with  phil- 
osophy and  wrote  "^  RefutatioJi  of  the  Philosophers.''^ 

On  the  other  hand  while  Islam  recoiled  from 
philosophy  as  something  wholly  irreconcilable  with  it- 
self as  the  religion  of  unquestioning — that  is,  unthink- 
ing— submission  to  the  will  of  Allah,  yet  in  the  face 
of  the  "Religion  of  Reason,"  as  Hegel  has  well 
named  Christianity,  Islam  was  in  a  measure  com- 
pelled to  make  use  of  philosophy. 

Christianity,  on  the  contrary,  had  from  the  first,  as 


lErdman.     Op.  Cit.,  I,  369. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  235 

we  have  seen,  made  use  of  Greek  philosophy  for  the 
two-fold  reason  that  (1)  the  form  of  that  philosophy 
was  found  to  be  precisely  the  instrument  needed  for 
the  further  unfolding  of  the  new  doctrines  into  that 
clear  and  adequate  expression  which  alone  could 
prove  satisfying  to  thought;  and  that  (2)  in  their 
inmost  spirit  the  highest  speculations  of  the  Greek 
mind  were  essentially  one  with  the  central  doctrines 
of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  to  note,  too,  that  while 
the  Mohammedans  were  drawn  toward  Aristotle,  the 
earlier  Christians  were  chiefly  influenced  by  Plato. 
The  dr}^  formalism  of  the  one,  with  his  elaborate 
treatment  of  the  phj^sical  sciences,  with  much  plaus- 
ibility could  be  interpreted  so  as  seemingly  to  harmo- 
nize with  the  rigid  materialistic  monotheism  of  Islam; 
just  as  the  more  mystical  speculations  of  the  other, 
with  their  insistent  and  inspiring  emphasis  upon  the 
questions  of  the  nature  and  destiny  of  the  human 
soul,  might  easily  appear  to  early  Christians  as  but 
another  version,  addressed  to  the  higher  intelligence? 
of  the  richly  complex,  wholly  spiritual  doctrine  of  a 
triune  personal  God  with  whom  each  individual  soul 
stands  ia  infiaitely  intimate  relationship. 

It  is  true  that  the  early  Christians  did  not  wholly 
neglect  Aristotle.  But  it  is  not  a  little  significant  that 
with  them  "the  Aristotelian  philosophy  was  studied 


236  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

more  by  heretics  than  b}^  Orthodox  Christians, ' '  *  Not 
until  more  than  a  thousand  j^ears  had  been  expended 
in  maturing  the  Christian  spirit  could  that  spirit  so 
far  comprehend  its  own  deepest  significance  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  truly  organic  and  profoundly 
spiritual  import  of  Aristotle's  teachings  on  the  other, 
to  recognize  for  a  second  time  in  the  history-  of 
Christianity  the  essential  inner  unity  as  between  the 
Christ-Ideal  of  Divine  Love,  and  the  Greek  Ideal  of 
absolute  devotion  to  truth  as  the  eternal  Divine 
Order  of  the  World. 

It  is  precisely  this  radical  difference  in  the  relation 
to  philosophy  which  these  two  religipns  assumed 
respectively  that  constitutes  the  secret  of  the  extreme 
differences  of  results  achieved  in  the  one  case  from 
those  achieved  in  the  other.  In  its  struggle  with 
Christianity  Islam  must  withdraw  more  and  more 
into  its  simple  doctrine  of  the  absolute  oneness  of 
Allah  as  Will.  And  this,  reflectively  formulated, 
must  be  seen  to  exclude  absolutely  all  other  wills. 

Even  in  the  Koran  this  ultimate  inference  is  al- 
ready foreshadowed,  as  the  following  will  sufficiently 
illustrate:  "These  revelations  are  a  reminder,  and 
whoever  wills,  strikes  upon  a  way  leading  to  his  Lord. 
But  ye  cannot  will  unless  Allah  wills,  for  Allah  is 
knowing    and    wise.      He    leads    whom  he   will  into 


'Ueberweg.     History  of  Philosophy,  I,  403. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  237 

his  grace,  but  for  the  unrighteous  he  has  prepared 
a  fearful  punishment."^  If  none  can  will  save  as 
Allah  wills,  then  Allah  alone  wills,  and  Allah  alone 
is  Will. 

Christianity  had  made  the  divine  nature  of  man 
and  his  consequent  immortality  its  central  doctrine. 
On  the  other  hand  in  its  very  emphasizing  of  the  ex- 
clusive divinity  of  Allah,  Islam,  and  philosophy  in 
the  service  of  Islam,  was  driven  logically  to  deny  the 
immortality  of  the  human  soul. 

Christianity  had  at  first  found  specially  to  its 
liking  the  poetically  idealistic  philosophy  of  Plato. 
Now,  after  more  than  a  thousand  years  of  accumulated 
vitality,  all  the  vigor  of  the  Christian  spirit  was  re- 
quired to  redeem  the  more  rigidly  systematic  Aris- 
totle from  the  wreck  of  materialism  to  which  he  had 
been  reduced  b}^  his  Mohammedan  commentators. 

It  is  true  that  Aristotle  was  first  made  known  to 
the  Christian  world  of  the  Middle  Ages  through  these 
same  Mohammedan  commentators.  But  this  is  much 
the  same  as  to  say  that  while  the  crusaders  were 
making  their  prolonged  and  finally  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  permanently  rescue  the  empty  tomb  of  the 
historical  Christ  from  the  possession  of  the  Moham- 
medans, the  Arabic  versions  of  the  great  Greek 
thinker  were  invading  Europe  and  producing,  for  the 


^From  Sprenger's  Revision  of  Sura,  LXXVI.  29-31.  Lebe^i 
und  Lehie  des  Moh,  II,  36. 


238  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

time,  the  hope- destroying  impression  that  all  the 
universe  is  but  a  tomb  in  which  every  human  being, 
each  in  his  turn,  will  be  buried,  never  to  wake  again. 

This  materialistic  tendency  percolates  like  a  subtle 
poison  through  the  convictions  of  the  period.  At 
Padua,  at  Paris,  in  the  great  universities,  the  writ- 
ings of  Averroes  came  to  be  eagerly  studied,  so  that 
his  interpretations  of  Aristotle  were  at  length  accepted 
as  final. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  question  wheth- 
er, as  Renan  thinks,  Aristotle  expressed  himself 
obscurely  as  to  the  individuality  and  immortality  of 
the  human  soul/  Allowing  this  opinion  to  stand  as 
representing  the  fact,  it  is  evident  that  Aristotle's  own 
presentation  of  the  question  admits  of  an  af^rmative 
as  well  as  of  a  negative  interpretation.  And  it  is  al- 
so evident  that  the  interpretation  will  be  the  one  or 
the  other  according  to  the  attitude  of  mind  with 
which  the  investigator  approaches  the  text. 

With  the  Mohammedan  thinkers  the  materialistic 
tendencies  so  far  predominate  that  the  only  consistent 
result  possible  for  them  in  philosophy  was  pantheism 
pure  and  simple.  As  Allah  is  the  one  will  by  which 
all  things  in  the  universe  subsist,  so  there  can  be  but 
one  Intellect  of  which  every  particular  intelligence  is 
but  a  passing  manifestation.    The  human  mind,  like 


'^Averroes.     p.  i24. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  239 

the  flower,  the  star,  the  cloud,  is  but  an  emanation 
from  the  one  eternal  Reality,  into  which  cloud,  star, 
flower,  mind,  all  alike  must  at  length  be  reabsorbed. 

What  could  lead  so  directly  or  so  irretrievably  to 
absolute  indifferentism  as  this  enervating,  materialis- 
tic identification  of  man  with  the  fleeting  forms  of 
nature?  This  is,  indeed,  but  the  inevitable  outgrowth 
of  what,  from  the  first,  constituted  the  true  germ  of 
Islamism.  Since  the  Will  of  Allah  is  all,  since  your 
individual  existence  and  mine,  is  each  but  for  a  mo- 
ment, what  matters  it  whether  we  have  the  same  be- 
lief any  more  than  whether  we  have  the  same  outward 
complexion? 

M.  Renan  looks  upon  "the  facility  wdth  which 
the  comparison  of  religions" — leading  to  "indiffer- 
entism and  materialism"^ — "oflers  itself  to  the  spirit 
of  the  Moslems,"  as  itself  "a  thing  surprising."-  To 
the  present  writer  nothing  could  be  more  surprising 
than  just  this  opinion. 

The  saying  of  the  Sufis  is  the  one  natural  form  of 
confession  for  this  faith:  "When  there  is  no  more  of 
w^  or //^^<?.  what  then  will  signify  the  caaba  of  the 
Moslem,  or  the  synagogue  of  the  Jew,  or  the  convent 
of  the  Christian?" 

If  that  is  the  result  to  be  attained,  then  the  world 
may   very  well  dispense  with  the  "comparison  of  re- 


'Conrpare  apove.  p.  232, 
-Averroes,  p.  293. 


240  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

ligions  !"^  And  still  more  may  such  comparison  (the 
"comparison" in  which  only  similarities  are  noted), be 
dispensed  with  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  doc- 
trine of  "indifferentism  and  materialism"  thus  at- 
tained has  always  been  welcomed  with  a  fairly 
feverish  delight  by  gross  minds,  as  justifying  beyond 
cavil  the  fullest  indulgence  of  sensuality,  even  in  its 
most  brutalizing  forms.  It  was  precisely  this  liber- 
ty of  license  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  found  its  con- 
fession of  faith  in  "the  blasphemy  of  the  Three  Im- 
postors,'" and  which,  let  us  repeat,  represented  the 
outgrowth  of  that  "materialistic  skepticism"  devel- 
oping, as  M.  Renan  himself  says,  "out  of  the  study 
of  the  Arabs  and  cloaking  itself  with  the  name  of 
Averroes. "'" 

Against  all  this  it  was  necessary  that  there  should 
be  a  determined  and  persistent  revolt  if  the  results 
promised  at  the  Battle  of  Tours  were  ever  to  be  re- 
alized. There  was  once  more  to  be  practically  con- 
sidered, and  now  once  for  all  decided,  the  question 
whether  Europe  was  to  be  Mohammedan  or  Christian 
— whether   it   was  to   sink  into  "indifferentism  and 


'I  need  hardly  say  that  to  me  the  "comparison  of  Re- 
ligions," properly  speaking,  is  not  merely  the  noting  of 
points  of  likeness— a  process  which  may  very  well  lead 
to  "indifferentism  and  materialism"— but  also  the  equally 
careful  noting  of  fundamental  differences.  Doubtless 
the  latter  alone  must  lead  to  "religious  fanaticism.*'  The 
blending  of  the  two  can  alone  lead  to  enlightened  judgment 

''~ Averroes.    p.  292. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  241 

materialism,"  or  to  rise  into  an  ever-increasing  vigor 
of  hopeful  spirituality. 

Surely  it  is  not  strange  that  the  "religious  fanat- 
icism" of  the  Christian  world  should  assert  itself  to 
the  uttermost  degree  at  the  reappearance  of  the  old 
question  in  this  new  and  subtle  form.  For  the  new 
tendency  was  indeed  like  a  veritable  "Satan  lurking 
at  the  bottom  of  the  heart  of  the  century." 

And  now  let  us  remind  ourselves  again  that  there 
are  all  degrees  of  "religious  fanaticism,"  from  that  of 
mere  blind  ferocity — like  that  of  Omar — to  that  of 
J03''0us,  reasoning,  all-energizing  devotion  to  Truth — 
like  that  of  Paul.  The  latter  is  that  transfigured  form 
of  fanaticism  which  is  named  Bnf/msiasm,  and  which, 
being  interpreted,  means  :  T/ie  sense  0/  God  within 
o?ie. 

VI. 

The  influence  of  "Arab  philosophy"  proved,  indeed, 
to  be  relatively  short-lived,  while  the  "religious 
fanaticism"  of  Christian  Europe  was  but  the  super- 
ficial manifestation  of  a  profound  undercurrent  of 
genuine  rationality.  We  have  seen  in  the  personality 
of  Paul  the  initial  point  of  the  fusion  of  the  three  fun- 
damental factors  of  the  world's  history.  We  have 
also  noted  the  first  step  in  the  wider  development  of 
this  process  in  the  fact  that  in  the  West  the  Greek 
schoolmaster     followed    closely     upon    the    Roman 


242  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

legionary,  and  that  the  Christian  missionary  followed 
closely  in  the  path  of  the  Greek  schoolmaster. 

We  have  now  to  add  that  the  work  of  Charlemagne 
was  essentially  the  bringing  of  these  earlier,  spon- 
taneous, and  thus  far  in  great  measure  isolated,  factors 
into  organic  union.  As  Roman  Kmperor,  this  great 
man  seems  to  have  appreciated  to  the  full  both  his 
opportunities  and  his  responsibilities.  With  his 
armies  he  compelled  the  obedience  of  Europe,  not  to 
his  own  mere  arbitrary  will,  but  to  the  law^s  as  the 
systematic  expression  of  the  matured  universal  (ra- 
tional) will  of  the  world.  But,  as  he  clearly  saw,  this 
work  could  be  but  temporary  in  its  results  unless  the 
undisciplined  people  he  was  bringing  under  control 
could  be  brought  to  recognize  the  essential  validity  of 
the  laws  he  was  enforcing,  unless  they  could  be 
brought  to  see  that  their  own  true  freedom  depended 
upon  their  own  voluntary  obedience  to  Law  as  but 
the  outer  form  of  an  inner  demand  of  their  own 
nature. 

But  this  could  be  brought  about  only  by  the  intel- 
lectual discipline  of  these  peoples.  Hence  Charle- 
magne devoted  his  energies  no  less  to  the  establish- 
ment of  schools  within  the  empire  than  to  the  organ- 
ization and  management  of  that  splendid  police  sys- 
tem by  which  he  enforced  order  within  his  realm  and 
maintained  it  securely  against  dangers  from  without. 
Nay,  without   this  external    order  and   security   the 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  243 

schools  could  do  nothing  toward  developing  that  inner 
spiritual  order  and  security  as  a  means  toward  which 
those  schools  were  established. 

But  even  so  the  Empire  would  still  be  hopelessly 
materialistic  unless  the  genuine  religion  of  spirituality 
should  become  the  religion  of  the  people  of  the  Em- 
pire. Europe  must  become  Christian.  It  must  learn 
to  love  as  God  loves.  To  become  Christian  it  must 
be  educated.  It  must  learn  to  think  as  God  thinks. 
To  become  educated  it  must  be  subdued.  It  must 
learn  to  will  as  God  wills. 

Unquestionably  Charlemagne  was  a  practical  be- 
liever in  compulsory  education.  But  the  lesson  of 
which  he  taught  Western  Europe  the  rudiments  is  the 
lesson  of  what  might  be  called  absolute  psychology. 
It  is  the  central  lesson  of  Christianity — the  infinitely 
significant  lesson  that  the  essential  nature  of  God  is 
also  the  essential  nature  of  man,  and  that  therefore 
the  true  destiny  of  man,  of  every  individual  man,  is 
to  "live  unto  God"  an  endless  and  endlessly  expand- 
ing life.  It  is  the  infinitely  inspiring  lesson  that  so 
far  from  being  lost  by  reabsorption  into  the  one 
eternal  Essence,  he  is  rather,  by  endless  progression, 
to  absorb  the  Divine  into  himself.  More  correctly,  he 
is  to  unfold  the  divine  potential  of  his  true  nature 
into  ever  increasing  divine  reality. 

Occupied  with  a  purpose  so  comprehensive  and  pro- 
found, Charlemagne  could  not  be  indifferent  toward 


244  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

Islam.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  undertook  no  less 
than  seven  expeditions  against  the  Saracens  in  Spain. 
And  yet  his  best  defense  of  Europe  against  Moham- 
medanism was  his  establishment  of  educational  facil- 
ities by  which  Europe  became  trained  into  such  power 
of  clear  discrimination  as  enabled  her  to  discern  the 
infinite  superiority  of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of 
Spirituality  and  Freedom  over  Islam  as  the  religion 
of  Materialism  and  Fatalism. 

Now  it  is  this  Christian  rationalism,  to  which 
Charlemagne  gave  so  powerful  an  impulse,  and  which 
went  on  increasing  through  the  work  of  such  men  as 
Erigena,  Anselm,  Abelard,  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  and 
Peter  Lombard,  that  constituted,  as  was  said  above, 
the  deep  undercurrent  of  what,  on  its  surface,  bore 
the  character  of  mere  "religious  fanaticism"  on  the 
part  of  Christianity  as  against  Mohammedanism. 

And  this  is  the  more  manifest  when  we  note  the 
fact  that  the  anti-Arabic  movement  proved  its  wis- 
dom, not  so  much  by  personally  persecuting  those 
Christian  teachers  who  had  imbibed  the  taint  of  the 
materialistic  tendency,  as  by  gradually  gaining  con- 
trol of  the  schools  and  teaching  there  a  truer,  freer, 
more  Christian  philosophy. 

For  a  time,  indeed,  the  study  of  Aristotle  was  pro- 
hibited in  the  schools.  But  with  the  development  of 
direct  translations  of  his  works  it  came  about  that  the 
study  of  those  works  was  not  only  permitted,  but  ac- 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  245 

tually  prescribed.  For  now  it  began  to  be  discovered 
that  the  genuine  Aristotle  afforded  the  one  really 
adequate  guide  to  the  method  required  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  highest  Christian  philosophy. 

The  theology  of  the  Christian  world  (formulated  in 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries),  is  Platonic  in  its 
structure.  It  is  at  once  scientific  and  mystical.  The 
philosophy  of  the  Christian  world  (formulated  in  the 
thirteenth  century),  is  Aristotelian  in  its  method.  It 
is  scientific  even  to  the  degree  of  being  fearlessly 
speculative  or  rational. 

Nevertheless  in  the  use  of  Aristotle  as  a  guide  to 
method  and  a  stimulus  to  thought,  Christian  philoso- 
phy remains  none  the  less  Christian.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  their  use  of  the  method  of  the  great  thinker, 
the  schoolmen  of  the  Middle  Ages  interpret  his  teach- 
ings in  such  way  as  to  transfigure  them  out  of  the 
mere  narrow  worldly-wisdom,  in  which  alone  the 
Arabs  had  felt  at  home  with  him,  into  the  fullest 
measure  of  that  ideal  sphere  which  constitutes  his 
highest  claim  to  be  the  guide  of  those  who  feel  the 
need  of  seeking  after  truth  by  means  of  the  specu- 
lative reason. 

It  might,  in  fact,  be  said  that  the  schoolmen  of  the 
Middle  Ages  converted  Aristotle  to  Christianity  as 
well  as  converted  him  to  the  uses  of  Christianity,  were 
it  not  far  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  when  they  re- 


246  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

lieved  him  of  Mohammedan  disguises  they  discovered 
him  to  be  already  Christian  at  heart. 

And  here  we  have  the  clew  to  the  vastly  different 
results  attained  in  the  two  cases  through  the  avenues 
of  philosophy.  The  Moslem  "lives  within  the  day," 
and  troubles  himself  very  little  as  to  the  invisible  and 
intangible.  By  word  and  by  example  the  Prophet 
taught  his  followers  to  expect  a  sensual  paradise. 

Thus,  in  proportion  as  his  followers  came  to  really 
reflect  upon  these  teachings,  the  only  conclusion  they 
could  consistently  reach  was,  that  as  the  sensuous 
perishes  so  the  paradise  for  the  believer  is — really  is, 
only  here  and  now — coarsely  sensual,  if  he  would 
have  it  so,  refined  and  intellectual  if  so  he  prefers,  but 
in  any  case  temporal  and  vanishing.  Individuality 
is  literally  a  mere  dream,  naught  else  than  a  passing 
shadow.  Hence  what  signifies  difference  of  creed  ? 
What  object  in  considering  the  relative  merits  of  dif- 
ferent theories  save  so  far  as  it  may  afford  a  pleasing 
pastime  ?  "Great  is  Allah!"  exclaimed  a  serene  Mos- 
lem. ''Behold  that  Frank  furiously  walking  about 
when  he  might  just  as  well  be  sitting  down  !" 

"Indifferentism  and  materialism"  are  the  inevi- 
table culmination  of  the  Mohammedan  faith.  There 
is  no  other  logical  outcome  for  it  but  intellectual  stag- 
nation and  moral  corruption.  Its  field  of  activity 
is  within  the  range  of  things  tangible.  Hence  in 
periods  of  peace  its  vitality  consumes  itself,  and  only 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  247 

in  war  blooms  again  into  vigorous  life.  For  then  the 
grand  national  raid  is  astir,  and  the  motive  of  "booty 
and  beauty"  sets  the  sensualist  imagination  aflame. 
Islam  lives  on  destruction  and  must  die  with  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  rule  of  Reason  over  the  earth. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Christian  lives  for  the  fu- 
ture. And  to  him  that  future  is  the  infinite  sum  of 
possibilities /^r  him.  It  is  the  organic  form  of  an 
infinitely  rich  ideal.  And  through  the  meager  sum  of 
Reality  constituting  his  actual  Present,  he  has  caught 
an  inspiring  glimpse  of  that  ideal  as  being  his  own 
infinite  ideal  nature  to  be  progressively  realized  by 
him  through  an  endless  and  unweariedl}^  active  ex- 
istence. And  for  the  actual  performance  of  this  in- 
finite task  boundless  courage  unfolds  within  him 
through  the  recognition  on  his  part  that  precisely  the 
same  ideal  is  also  the  ideal  nature  of  Divinit}^  forever 
realized  through  his  perfect  activity  in  the  eternal 
Now.  Nay,  the  eagerness  of  the  Christian  in  this 
work  grows  perpetually  since  every  step  of  progress 
he  makes  only  reveals  to  him  more  clearly  that  thus 
he  is  becoming  more  1  ke  the  Perfect  One  in  reality 
as  he  is  forever  identical  with  that  One  in  ideal 
nature.     Where  knowledge  fails,  faith's  guesses  lead. 

And  so,  too,  this  at  length  dawns  upon  him:  that 
by  forgetting  the  present  and  living  for  the  future  he 
is  steadily  unfolding  for  himself  and  within  himself 
an  ever  richer  Present  that  is  never  to  become  past. 


248  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

For  he  is  fulfilling  Divinity  in  himself  and  thus 
emerging  out  of  Time  into  Eternity. 

By  word  and  by  example  the  Founder  of  Christ- 
ianity taught  his  followers  that  the  sensuous  is  wor- 
thy the  attention  of  man  only  in  so  far  as  it  serves  as 
a  means  to  the  spiritual.  To  the  unreflecting  con- 
sciousness this  is  a  shocking  paradox.  And  yet  in  that 
very  fact  it  stimulates  reflection  and  tends  to  awaken 
the  merely  sensuous  consciousness  into  anxious  in- 
quir}^  concerning  itself  ;  and  the  furth  r  reflection 
progresses  the  more  infinitely  significant  does  differ- 
ence of  creed  appear  and  the  more  infinitely  perilous 
is  error  of  judgment,  falsity  of  theory,  seen  to  be. 

Thus  Christianity,  instead  of  finding  its  culmi- 
nation in  "indifferentism  and  materialism,"  exhibits, 
by  its  own  inherent  dialectic,  perpetual  increase  of 
self-criticizing  carefulness  and  thorough-going  spirit- 
uality. Instead  of  intellectual  stagnation  and  moral 
corruption  as  the  logical  outcome  there  is  intellectual 
eagerness  and  moral  austerity. 

The  activity  of  the  Christian  world  is  within  the 
range  of  things  "invisible  and  eternal."  Science, 
art,  philosophy — the  tracing  of  the  evidences  of  the 
creative  Thought  even  in  things  insensate;  the  seiz- 
ure of  the  rhythm  of  the  world  as  of  the  pulsations  of 
the  heart  of  Deity;  the  comprehension  of  the  unity 
and  method  of  the  world  as  of  the  process  of  the 
Divine  Will — these,  and  above  all  as  they  are    given 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  249 

the  form  of  living  reality  in  the  slowly  maturing 
world  of  human  institutions,  constitute  increasingly 
the  objects  of  interest  in  the  Christian  world. 

Hence  in  periods  of  war  the  Christian  spirit  droops 
as  from  inherent  contradiction, while  in  periods  of  peace 
it  unfolds  into  richest  realization.  For  its  votaries 
the  splendor  of  its  Ideal  remains  undimmed  and  all 
energies  are  bent  toward  its  speediest  fulfillment. 
Christianity  dies  through  the  wasting  of  human  en- 
ergies in  mere  outward  conflict.  Its  life  will  be  ful- 
filled through  the  establishment  of  the  rule  of  Reason 
over  the  earth. 

Institutional  life  is,  indeed,  the  necessary  medium 
for  the  extension  of  that  rule.  On  the  one  hand  Mo- 
hammedanism is  in  its  very  nature  antagonistic  to 
all  true  institutional  life.  Christianity,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  by  its  nature  the  guiding  principle  in  the 
full  and  free  development  of  that  life.  For  institu- 
tions are  but  the  outer,  organic  form  which  all  ra- 
tional communal  life  assumes,  and  must  ever  assume. 
And  in  its  inmost  nature  Christianity  is,let  us  repeat, 
the  very  "Religion  of  Reason"  itself. 

It  is  true  that  to  the  full  significance  of  institu- 
tional life  the  Christian  consciousness  itself  is  even 
yet  by  no  means  perfectly  awakened.  We  have 
caught  a  glimpse  of  Charlemagne  expending  all  the 
energies  of  his  "terrible  will"  in  enforcing  upon 
Western  Europe  the  mere  rudiments  of  this  lesson. 


250  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

What  he  accomplished  in  this  direction  was  never 
wholl}^  forgotten,  and  yet,  three  hundred  years  after 
his  death  it  seemed  that  Europe  was  in  danger  of 
relapsing  into  a  forgetfulness  of  its  true  spiritual  aim, 
and  hence  in  danger  of  becoming  broken  up  into 
local  groups  pursuing  increasingly  materialistic  pur- 
poses, the  result  of  which  must  be  an  ever-growing 
hostility  one  toward  another.  All  which  could  end 
only  in  mere  savage  anarchy. 

And  not  only  so,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  the  poison 
of  Moslem  "indifferentism  and  materialism"  was  al- 
ready preparing  in  its  subtlest  form  under  the  smiling 
skies  of  Andalusia  and  would  presently  pass  into  the 
schools  of  Europe,  thence  to  be  carried  into  the  life- 
blood  of  Christendom.  What  antidote  would  suffice 
to  neutralize  this  poison? 

VII. 

The  antidote,  indeed,  had  also  long  been  preparing. 
It  was  to  consist  in  a  quickened  and  enlightened 
conscience  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  Europe.  But 
the  result  could  be  brought  about  only  by  the  reawak- 
ening of  the  Christian  consciousness  to  the  one  great 
Ideal  of  Life,  constituting  the  essential  element  of 
unity  for  all  Christian  peoples.  And  to  be  effective 
for  the  unification  and  inspiration  of  the  people  of 
that  period  this  Ideal  must  at  first  present  itself  in 
the  form  of  an  outward  symbol  serving   as  a    motive 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    MOHAMME:dANISM.  251 

alike  for  all.  It  must  appeal  to  the  whole  Christian 
world  as  one  common  purpose.  And  because  it  must 
take  an  external  form  its  objective  point  must  be 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  Christian  world. 

Quite  unconsciously  the  people  of  Europe  had  long 
been  bringing  this  symbolical  motive  into  matured 
form.  This  was  no  other  than  the  conviction,  at 
length  wide-spread  and  profound,  that  on  the  one 
hand  not  only  were  all  Christians  disgraced  by  the 
fact  that  the  Holy  I^and — the  sacred  place  of  the 
birth,  the  life,  the  sufferings,  the  death,  the  sepulture, 
the  resurrection  of  the  Man  who  was  God — should  be 
in  possession  of  scoffing  unbelievers;  but  that  also, 
on  the  other  hand,  every  Christian  was  in  some 
sense  actually  guilty  of  sin  in  so  far  as  he  consented 
to  the  countenance  of  that  possession. 

So  universal  a  conviction  could  have  no  other  than 
a  divine  origin.  It  is  the  ''will  of  God.''  Such  is  the 
universal  assumption. 

The  conviction  is  fairly  Mohammedan  in  its  sim- 
plicity. But  nothing  could  be  further  from  Moham- 
medanism than  the  idealcharacter  of  the  motive,  even 
in  its  most  external  form.  The  thought  that  con- 
sciously stirs  in  men's  minds  is  :  that  of  a  purely  un- 
selfish deed — of  a  deed  done  in  honor  of  God  and  of 
Him  alone. 


252  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

Thus  the  third  'great  reaction  of  Europe  against 
Asia  is  formulated  and  set  in  actual  movement. 

And  now  let  us  note,  however  briefly  and  inade- 
quately, the  central  characteristic  of  this  Reaction. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  that  the 
fading  Ideal  of  Christianity  was  fairly  recalled  to 
vividness  in  men's  minds  in  the  form  just  indicated. 
That  form,  as  v\e  have  seen,  was  exceedingly  simple 
and  abstract.  But  for  that  very  reason  it  was  the 
more  easily  seized  by  the  multitude  and  the  better 
suited  to  awaken  unreflecting  fanatical  zeal. 

The  torab  of  Christ  must  be  rescued  from  "infidels." 
And  yet  conflict  with  those  who  in  the  abstract  were 
infidels,  was  also  contact  with  those  who  in  the  con- 
crete were  human  beings.  The  abstract  infidel  was 
a  "devil."  The  concrete  human  being  was,  after  all, 
a  man,  a  neighbor,  nay,  even  a  brother,  who  had  in- 
deed gone  sadly  astray,  but  who  could  no  longer  be 
looked  upon  as  a  mere  monster.  Evidently  the  first 
estimate  of  the  case  in  this  respect  must  be  amended. 

And  the  tomb  of  Christ  ?  Even  if  its  identification 
were  beyond  all  question,  it  is  still  precisely  the  spot 
from  which  Christ  is  absent.      As  the  crusader  looked 


^The  firfet  was  the  tnythico-historical  one  (of  Troy)  in  de- 
fense of  social  life  (the  institutions  of  the  Family);  the  sec- 
ond was  in  afTirmation  of  political  institutions  (the  State, 
based  on  universal  principles  of  Right  formulated  in  L,aw), 
It  was  begun  in  the  Persian  Wars  and  completed  in  the  con- 
quests of  Rome. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  253 

within  this  tomb  a  voice  must  inevitably  whisper  to 
him  :   "He  is  not  here^  but  risen.'' ^ 

So  also  looking  into  his  own  soul  the  crusader  could 
not  but  feel  more  or  less  keenly  that  there,  too,  Christ 
had  died  out — that  in  ver}^  truth  "He  is  not  here,  but 
risen.''  Thus  the  humiliating  discovery  could  not 
be  long  delayed  that  the  sordid  purposes  having  in 
reality  so  great  a  part  in  leading  him  to  the  Holy 
Land  to  rescue  what  now  he  began  to  feel  was  only 
the  empty  outer  tomb  of  Christ,  were  but  the  dust  and 
ashes  filling  the  otherwise  empty  tomb  of  Christ  in 
his  own  heart. 

To  find  the  living  Christ  he  must  look  upward, 
must  forget  the  selfish  aims  that  isolate  him  from  the 
Ideal,  the  Universal,  the  Divine  Man,  and,  by  self- 
forgetful  combination  with  his  fellows,  seek  to  dis- 
cover and  make  use  of  the  instrumentalities  that  will 
bring  him  into  vital  oneness  with  the  living  Christ. 

Those  instrumentalities,  indeed,  are  none  other 
than  the  institutions  of  the  human  world — the  Family, 
the  State,  the  Church,  together  with  the  school  as 
growing  out  of  all  these.  It  is  the  latter  which  serves 
as  an  instrument  to  clarify  the  minds  of  men  as  to 
the  ideal  nature  of  the  other  institutions  severally, 
and  also  as  an  instrumentality  for  the  enlightenment 
of  the  individual  man  himself  as  to  his  own  nature 
and  true  destiny.  Standing  at  the  brink  of  the  uni- 
versal Tomb  of  the  world  the  crusader  has  caught  a 


254  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

glimpse  of  the  universal  Life  ot  the  world.  Life  does 
not  end  in  death,  in  a  handful  of  dust  on  the  floor  of 
the  tomb,  in  the  nothingness  of  a  mere  point  in  space. 
It  "ends"  rather  in  reaurrection,  in  a  world-filling 
expansion  of  spiritual  energy.  Clearly,  then,  the 
crusader  cannot  but  feel  that  precisely  here  in  this 
Tomb  is  the  very  reverse  of  all  that  his  soul  has  most 
deeply  yearned  to  find. 

Hence  there  is  but  one  thing  left  for  him  to  do. 
He  must  go  back  to  Europe  where  alone  on  this 
planet  the  souls  of  men  as  yet  even  approximate  to 
fitness  for  becoming  the  dwelling  place  of  the  living 
Christ  in  his  "Second  Coming,"  but  where  also  the 
souls  of  men  seem  in  utmost  danger  of  becoming  the 
tomb  of  Christ  crucified  a  second  time.  For  a  counter- 
crusade  of  a  subtle  and  deadly  character  is  organizing 
to  invade  the  Christian  world.  Nay.  the  invasion 
has  already  begun.  Islamism  has  put  aside  its  ferocity 
for  the  time  and  has  assumed  a  seductive  form.  It  is 
persuading  the  half-educated  mind  of  Europe  that 
there  is  but  one  "active  Intellect,"  as  there  is  but  one 
persistent  Will.  The  belief  is  spreading  that  only 
benighted  minds  believe  in  the  immortality^  of  the  in- 
dividual human  soul.  Hence  infidel  passions,  infidel 
habits,  infidel  indifferentism,  infidel  materialism — all 
these  are  even  now  swarming  within  the  very  heart 
of  Europe. 

To  such  poison  nothing  else  will  serve  as   antidote 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  255 

but  the  vigorous  development  of  human  institutions 
through  the  Energy  of  men  inspired  by  the  Christ- 
Ideal.  And  above  all  at  such  crises  the  schools  must 
become  the  defenders  and  promoters  of  this  spirit  in 
forms  appealing  to  human  reason.  The  doctrines  of 
Christianity  nust  be  restated  with  reference  to  the 
new  danger,  while  at  the  same  time  the  irrational 
character  of  the  new  "enlightenment"  must  be  ex- 
posed. 

In  the  outcome,  in  fact,  the  subtlest  forms  of  the 
poison  will  find  their  perfect  antidote  in  the  teachings 
of  Albertus  Magnus  and  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 

In  their  first  forms  the  crusades  were  to  all  out- 
ward appearance  little  else  than  grand  continental 
raids.  Attacking  Mohammedanism  by  Mohammedan 
methods,  Christendom  was  baffled  and  thrown  back 
upon  herself.  Attacking  Christianity  with  the  wea- 
pons of  reason,  Mohammedanism  proves  its  own  in- 
herent incapacity  and  shrinks  back  to  die  of  inanition 
beneath  the  smiling,  ''liberalizing,"  Andalusian  sky. 

Thus,  however  abstract  and  fantastic  the  immediate 
form  of  the  Ideal  which  led  to  the  crusades,  3^et  in 
due  course  the  crusading  spirit  became  transformed 
and  even  transfigured  into  a  means  of  raising  the 
Christian  consciousness  of  Europe  to  the  point  of  an 
ideal  unity  of  interests  which  were  truly  spiritual. 

Doubtless  Europe  continued  to  be  filled  with  con- 
flicts— above  all  which  raged  most  conspicuously,  the 


256  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

conflict  between  the  absolutist  claims  of  emperors  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  no  less  absolutist  claims  of  popes 
on  the  other.  The  attempt  of  Henry  III  of  the  Em- 
pire to  establish  an  absolute  monarchy,  in  the  service 
of  which  the  Church  should  be  reduced  to  a  mere  po- 
litical engine,  was  followed  at  no  distant  da}"  by  the 
reaction  under  Hildebrand,  bringing  the  Church  into 
a  state  of  healthy  vigor,  guaranteeing  Europe  there- 
after against  any  further  danger  from  imperial  abso- 
lutism. So  that  when,  long  after,  we  hear  the  bril- 
liant but  scoffing  Frederick  II  exclaim  :  "Happy 
Saladin  who  has  no  Pope  !"  we  are  prepared  to  re- 
spond :  Happy  Europe,  which  has  not  lacked  a  Pope 
to  withstand  the  deadly  materializing  tendencies  of 
unrestricted  imperial  power  ! 

Superficially  regarded,  these  conflicts  are  a  meas- 
ureless scandal  to  the  Christian  world.  And  yet  in 
truth  the  outer  conflicts  unfailingly  provoked  an  in- 
ner conflict  of  mind  with  mind.  That  is,  discussion 
was  called  forth  and  attempt  made  to  prove  the  reas- 
onableness of  either  party  to  the  conflict.  But  this  in 
turn  could  not  fail  to  aid  greatly  in  deepening  and 
rationalizing  the  consciousness  of  Christendom  as  to 
its  true  Ideal,  and  thus  in  redeeming  Europe  from 
the  "indiflerentism  and  materialism"  which  threat- 
ened to  overwhelm  it. 

Thus  was  the  still  new  Western  world  rendered  in- 
creasingly faithful  to  its  truer  self  as  the  proper  agent 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM.  257 

for  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in 
the  hearts  of  men — increasingly  conscious,  too,  that 
this  could  be  accomplished  in  no  other  way  than  by 
means  of  those  institutions  through  which  alone  the 
communal  life  of  man  can  be  rendered  truly  organic, 
and  which  thus  constitute  also  the  instrumentality 
through  which  alone  the  life  of  individual  man  can 
be  matured. 

Nor  can  this  latter  point  be  too  strongly  emphasized. 
In  the  light  of  Christianity  it  is  precisely  the  individ- 
ual human  being  who  is  immortal,  and  who  by  that 
fact  is  of  infinite  significance.  Institutions  are  but 
the  outer  forms  assumed  by  what  is  universal  in  man. 
They  constitute  the  organism  of  the  human  spirit,  as 
far  as  this  is  here  and  now  already  realized. 

Hence  they  are  of  value  in  just  so  far,  and  only 
just  so  far,  as  they  serve  as  instrumentalities  in  the 
unfolding  into  reality  of  the  universal  Ideal  of  Man 
in  individual  men.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  institu- 
tions are  ever  proving  useful  and  also  ever  proving 
hurtful.  So  long  as  they  are  fresh  and  flexible — that 
is,  truly  organic — they  are  conducive  to  life.  So  soon 
as  they  become  hardened  into  rigid  forms — so  soon  as 
they  cease  to  be  organic — they  prove  to  be  repressive 
of  life.  They  are  the  skin  of  the  Serpent  of  Thought 
which  must  be  cast  from  time  to  time  in  order  that 
"civilization"  may  not  become  blind  and  venomous  ; 
in  order  that  the  genuine  spiritual  life  of  a  people  may 


258  CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOHAMMEDANISM. 

not  be  stifled,  but  that  instead  it  may  be  allowed  the 
full  range  of  natural  conditions  for  its  perfect  devel- 
opment. 

Such  are  the  conclusions  at  which  we  arrive 
throu2h  a  critical  comparison  of  Christianity  and 
Mohammedanism.  Only  by  sacrificing  its  character 
of  genuine  universality  can  Christianity  make  con- 
cessions to  the  faith  of  Islam.  Only  through  its  own 
dissolution  can  Islam  approximate  Christianity.  As 
forms  of  religion  they  are  wholly  irreconcilable. 
Vital  education  must  destroy  the  faith  of  the  indi- 
vidual Moslem  in  his  creed;  and  the  only  logical  cul- 
mination  of  this  process  must  be  his  conversion  to  the 
"Religion  of  Reason"  as  founded  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
as  formulated  by  Paul  of  Tarsus,  as  elaborated  by  the 
science,  the  art,  the  literature,  the  philosophy,  the 
institutions  of  all  succeeding  ages. 


V. 

THE   NATURAL  HISTORY   OF   CHURCH 
ORGANIZATION. 


A  half-century  ago  a  great  German  philosopher, 
looking  through  spectacles  that  had  come  to  have  a 
decided  Prussian  tint,  beheld  the  Church  dissolving 
in  America  as  a  consequence  of  the  separation  be- 
tween Church  and  State. 

To  day  there  is  also  a  "new"  America.  But  now 
it  is  an  overwhelming  tendency  toward  centralization 
that  has  seized  upon  all  forms  of  communal  life,  and 
which,  on  first  view,  seems  to  threaten  the  total  sup- 
pression of  independence  in  the  individual  life.  Nor 
is  this  without  its  seeming  justification.  There  can 
be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  organization  is  the  one 
only  condition  favorable  either  to  the  development  of 
power  or  to  its  effective  employment.  But  neither 
can  there  be  any  reasonable  doubt  that  "organization" 
may  become  mechanical,  and  thus  result  at  length  in 
the  extinction  of  the  most  essential  of  all  the  qualities 
constituting  an  organism — the  quality  of  life  itself. 

Historically,  indeed,  this  has  been  the  actual  result 
in  only  too  many  instances.  Among  these  none  are 
more  conspicuous  than  those  presented  in  the  course 


260  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

of  the  development  of  the  Christian  Church.  As 
everyone  knows,  Christianity  first  struggled  into  form 
as  an  organization  in  irreconcilable  conflict  with  the 
established  religion  of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  suc- 
cess in  this  struggle  was  no  sooner  assured  than 
Christianity  itself  became  the  established  religion  of 
the  same  Empire.  Nor  was  this  "establishment"  of 
the  Church  a  merely  formal  aspect  of  its  development. 
At  that  time  no  one,  of  whatever  party,  doubted  for  a 
moment  that  the  only  normal  relation  between  Church 
and  State  was  that  of  completely  fused,  organic  union. 
Thus  far,  the  organization  of  the  Christian  Church 
was  based  mainly  upon  the  model  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  that  is,  upon  the  idea  of  Theocracy.  As  yet, 
however,  the  political  aspect  was  wanting.  And  this 
was  now  to  be  supplied  in  the  union  of  the  Christian 
Church  with  the  Roman  State. 

But  this  union  could  be  effected  only  through  mu- 
tual concessions.  The  Church  had  conquered  tlie 
Empire  by  converting  the  people  of  the  Empire  to  the 
Christian  faith.  The  Empire  surrendered  to  the 
Church,  that  it  might  possess  the  strength  of  the 
Church.  The  Church  was  now  in  turn  to  surrender 
to  the  Empire,  that  it  might  possess  the  marvelously 
efficient  organization  of  the  Empire.  The  Empire 
became  Christian  in  its  creed.  The  Church  became 
imperial  in  its  outer  forms  of  life.  And  why  not? 
Could  anything  be  more  manifest  than  that  this  same 


HISTORY    OF   CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  261 

marvelously  efficient  organization  was  a  "fore- 
ordained" instrumentality  for  the  complete  establish- 
ment of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  the  earth  ?  Evi- 
dently, in  such  case, 

"To  doubt  would  be  disloyalty ; 
To  falter  would  be  sin." 

Nevertheless  two  centers  quickly  developed  as 
rivals  in  ecclesiastical  authority — Rome  and  Constan- 
tinople. The  Roman  and  the  Greek  spirit  once  more 
contended  for  the  empire  of  the  World.  The  ques- 
tion now  was  :  Which  should  determine  in  detail  the 
ultimate  form  into  which  the  Christian  world  was  to 
be  moulded  ?  And,  however  little  it  was  understood 
to  be  the  case  at  that  time,  the  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion must  depend  upon  the  answer  to  the  further 
question  :  Which  of  the  two,  Roman  or  Greek,  was 
already  the  more  vitally  related,  or  possessed  the 
gifts  for  becoming  the  more  vitally  related,  to  the 
spirit  of  the  peoples  that  were  then  just  budding  into 
national  life  ? 

To  this  question  the  answer  assumed  two  widel}^ 
contrasted  forms.  Externally  these  forms  were  as 
follows  : 

First,  at  Constantinople  the  imperial  authority  was 
directly  present  in  the  person  of  the  Emperor.  Thus 
at  that  point  ecclesiastical  authority  was  completely 
overshadowed.  The  Greek  ecclesiastic  was  therefore 
first  of  all  a  theologian.     He  could  not  aspire  to  be 


262  HISTORY    OF   CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

also  a  politician.  As  a  Greek  he  had  but  one  world 
of  activity,  and  that  world  was  the  world  of  thought, 
of  speculation.  He  might  advise.  He  might  justify 
authority.  He  could  never  exercise  authority.  He 
might  mould  the  inner  world  of  thought,  but  not  the 
outer  world  of  affairs. 

At  Rome,  on  the  contrary,  the  Christian  Bishop 
successfully  rivaled  the  imperial  representative,  and 
soon  became  apractically  independent  authority.  The 
Greek  genius  of  Athanasius  might  be  required  to 
formulate  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ;  it  required  the 
Latin  genius  of  Augustine  not  only  to  give  to  that 
doctrine  its  final  touch  of  precision,  but  also  and  es- 
pecially was  this  Latin  genius  required  to  incorporate 
into  a  finished  vSystem  the  entire  body  of  Christian 
doctrine  thus  far  speculatively  developed,  and  to  give 
to  that  system  the  legal  aspect  of  dogma  to  be  en- 
forced sooner  or  later,  if  need  be,  by  secular  power. 
It  was  this  finished,  imperial  character  which  made  it 
possible  for  the  Church  of  Rome  to  take  the  initiative 
in  giving  a  distinctively  Christian  trend  to  the  new 
states  that  gradually  grew  into  form  amid  the  chaos 
of  the  Roman  imperial  world,  and  to  exercise  wnthin 
them  an  ever-increasing  influence. 

The  second  outer  form  assumed  by  the  answer  to  the 
question  whether  Greek  or  Latin  Christianity  pos- 
sessed the  gifts  for  becoming  vitally  related  to  the 
spirit  of  these  new  peoples,  is  to  be  found  in  the  atti- 


HISTORY   OF   CHURCH   ORGANIZATION.  263 

tilde  which  the  Greeks  and  the  Latins  assumed  re- 
spectively as  Christians  toward  art.  To  the  Greeks 
there  remained  the  splendid  traditions  of  classic  art. 
But  its  forms  belonged  irrevocably  to  the  now  ab" 
horred  religion  of  polytheism.  Nay,  it  proved  that 
in  the  service  of  this  religion  the  Greeks  had  really 
exhausted  their  capabilities  in  the  field  of  art.  Nor 
did  they  dare  attempt  to  use,  for  the  art  purposes  of 
the  new  faith,  the  typical  forms  which  the  genius  of 
their  race  had  thus  produced.  Or,  if  a  few  timid  at- 
tempts were  made  to  this  end  the  quickness  and  com- 
pleteness with  which  this  class  of  representations  was 
abandoned  only  proves  the  more  clearl}^  how  wholly 
alien  such  representations  were  felt  to  be  to  the  new 
themes. 

On  the  other  hand  the  case  was  radically  different 
with  the  Romans.  In  their  earlier  history  they  had 
not  been  an  art-loving  people.  So  that  whatever  ca- 
pabilities of  art  they  might  possess  still  remained 
latent.  At  the  same  time  the  new  faith  in  its  com- 
plex, abstract  form  could  not  be  seized  by  the  im- 
agination. And  yet  for  the  multitude  its  themes  must 
somehow  be  represented  to  the  eye.  Especially  was 
this  the  case,  not  only  for  the  later  Romans  who  had 
become  more  and  more  accustomed  to  magnificent 
pageants  and  who  were  growing  less  than  ever  ca- 
pable of  abstract  thinking  ;  but  also  and  still  more 
was  it  the  case  with  the  rude  minds  of  the  barbarian 


264  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

peoples  in  whom  lay  the  destinies  of  Europe  and  of 
the  world.  If  the  pictorial  form  was  not  the  onl}^  one 
that  could  appeal  effectively  to  these  untutored  minds 
it  was  at  least  the  form  that  could  appeal  to  them  in 
such  way  as  would  most  ennoble  sentiment  and  yet 
tend  least  to  crystalline  fixity  of  superstitious  concep- 
tions respecting  the  new  faith. 

Thus  as  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Bishop  grew 
it  became  possible  for  him  to  extend  the  ceremonial 
of  worship  and  enrich  it  with  the  most  varied  and  im- 
posing characteristics.  Carved  images,  too,  w^ere 
multiplied  without  number,  while  the  walls  of 
churches  were  covered  with  ever  freer  and  more  life- 
like representations  of  the  sacred  personages  of  the 
growing  faith.  Nowhere  in  the  history  of  the  world 
has  there  been  more  striking  illustration  of  the  fact 
that  in  its  highest  significance  art  is  nothing  else  than 
religion  struggling  to  express  itself  in  forms  of  beauty. 

That  in  these  two  respects  the  widely  contrasted 
aims  and  methods  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  divisions 
of  the  Church  are  to  be  considered  as  in  reality  the 
specific  forms  in  which  were  expressed  their  widely 
contrasted  views  concerning  the  'Procession  of  the 
Spirit,"  can  only  be  hinted  at  here  What  we  must 
especially  notice  at  present  is  the  fact  that  the  Latin 
Church  proved  itself  to  be  a  veritable  Teacher  "sent 
from  God"  to  the  newly  appearing  nations.  Its  or- 
ganization   assumed    a   character   of   vital    plasticity 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  265 

serving  wondrously  the  needs  of  the  newly  develop- 
ing type  of  spiritual  life. 

The  Greek  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  submitted 
passiv^ely  to  being  moulded  into  an  instrument  of  im 
perial  power.  The  Roman  Church  rapidly  developed 
into  a  practically  independent  power  that  soon  proved 
itself  capable  of  well-nigh  world-wide  dominion.  Its 
finely  vibrant  life  was  an  aspect  of  the  Spirit  proceed- 
ing from  humanity  as  the  Son. 

But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  organic  form 
which  the  Western  or  Roman  Church  assumed  was 
the  definite  outgrowth  of  the  Italian  spirit.  Its  im- 
posing ceremonial,  its  magnificent  pageantry,  were 
direct  products  of  that  restless  fancy,  that  buoyant 
vivacity  which  in  the  Italian  came  at  length  to  re- 
place the  taciturnity,  the  abstract  sobriety  of  mind  of 
the  Early  Romans.  Thus  it  is  that  Roman  Chris- 
tianity is  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  particular 
form  which  the  Christian  Religion  assumed  when 
adopted  by  one  specially  endowed  people.  The  epi- 
thet, "Roman  Catholic,"  is  indeed  a  direct  contradic- 
ti  m  in  terms.  And  with  perfectly  logical  consisten- 
cy the  use  of  the  epithet  has  always  been  resented  by 
the  Church  of  Rome ;  though  this  resentment  is  based 
upon  the  untenable  ground  that  the  Church,  having 
its  central  authority  at  Rome  is  simply  and  exclusively 
the  Catholic,  i.  e. ,  universal  Christian  Church. 

On  the  contrary,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  church 


266  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

having  its  center  at  Rome,  whether  we  view  it  from 
the  side  of  its  imperial  organization  or  from  the  side 
of  its  magnificent  ceremonial,  is  unquestionably  local, 
distinctively  Roman-Italian.  It  has,  indeed,  with 
all  its  one-sidedness,  its  non  universality  or  non- 
catholicity,  proven  itself  to  be  the  form  of  Christianity 
native  to  the  Latin  races.  And  this  is  shown  still 
further  by  the  very  fact  that  no  other  form  of  Chris- 
tianity has  ever  been  able  successfully  to  compete 
with  it  among  those  peoples;  just  as,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  fixed,  finished,  inflexible  character  of  that  form, 
especially  among  those  peoples,  shows  them  to  be  as 
a  whole,  still  characterized  chiefly  by  the  imaginative, 
non-reflective  phase  of  mind  ;  and  thus  to  be  ever  sat- 
isfied with  an  external,  spectacular  presentation  of 
the  truth.  Indeed  what  is  distinctively  called  tlie 
Catholic  Religion  to-day  is,  on  its  ceremonial  side,  in 
great  measure  an  outgrowth  of,  and  in  turn  most  ef- 
fectively appeals  to,  the  art  sentiment  of  the  Chris- 
tian world.  It  is  the  reduction  of  the  Beauty  of  Holi- 
ness to  the  sensuous,  imaginative  form.  It  is  and  can 
be  a  satisfying  faith  to  those  and  only  those  whose 
mental  habit  "is  to  accept  the  world  as  they  find  it," 
and  to  whom  therefore  the  w^orld  presents  no  specu- 
lative problems. 

And  this  is  precisely  the  reason  why  the  Italian 
form  of  Christianity  proves  to  be  fatally  lacking  for 
the  Teutonic   nations.     For  from  the   earliest  times 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  267 

those  nations  have  been  characterized  by  their  indi- 
vidualism— their  high  estimate  of  the  rights  and 
duties  of  each  individual  member  of  the  nation.  The 
very  core  of  this  characteristic,  as  need  hardly  be 
said,  is  the  sense  of  intellectual  freedom  with  its 
health}',  robust  vein  of  skepticism  that  would  prove 
all  things  in  order  to  be  the  more  sure  in  the  outcome 
of  holding  fast  to  that  which  is  good,  and  to  that 
alone.  And  the  more  mature  the  Teuton  became  in 
this  character  of  individualism,  only  by  so  much  the 
more  did  he  become  aware  of  the  utter  inadequacy  of 
Italian  Christianit}-  to  his  needs. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  Reformation,  in  deepest 
reality,  proved  to  be  nothing  less  or  else  than  the 
spontaneous  unfolding  of  a  new  form  in  which  to  or- 
ganically express  the  Christian  faith  as  it  appealed  to 
a  newly  developed  pliase  of  human  intelligence. 
Here  the  spectacular  fell  into  abeyance.  Nay,  in  the 
reaction  against  the  spectacular  form  it  was  but  inevi- 
table that  an  extreme  view  should  be  reached  to  the 
effect  that  this  form  was  mere  delusion,  a  pleasure  to 
the  eye  at  the  expense  of  the  soul's  real  interests. 
Thus,  if  the  Italian  was  charmed  and  satisfied  with  a 
splendid  ceremonial  that  seemed  to  him  to  realize  the 
utmost  Beauty  of  Holiness,  the  Teuton  came  to  feel 
that  nothing  was  worthy  of  his  effort  or  even  of  his 
attention  save  the  inner,  vital  essence.  The  Power 
of  Godliness  alone  could  avail. 


268  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

To  the  Italian  the  Reformation  was  as  the  coming 
of  Antichrist.  To  the  Teuton  it  was  the  beginning 
of  the  overthrow  of  Antichrist.  Doubtless  also  to 
non-Christians  it  seemed  the  first  sure  sign  of  the  dis- 
integration of  Christianity  itself.  And  yet  in  truth, 
as  has  now  long  been  evident,  the  great  movement  of 
the  Reformation  was  but  the  bringing  into  realization 
that  deeper  truth  of  Christianity  which  had  previoush' 
been  shadowed  forth  only  in  symbols. 

This  splendid  symbolism  still  remained,  indeed,  be- 
cause the  phase  of  intelligence  to  which  it  appealed, 
aud  by  which  also  it  was  produced,  still  re- 
mained. But  also  and  equally  the  newly  developed 
forms  were  necessary.  For  now  there  had  come 
to  something  like  maturity  a  new  phase  of  in- 
telligence which  saw  in  Christianit}^  a  deeper  aspect 
of  truth  than  symbolism  can  ever  hope  to  express. 
And  so  the  unfolding  of  a  new  form  of  the  Christian 
Religion  only  gave  proof  that  it  possessed  not  less 
but  greater  vitality  and  wealth  of  significance  than 
had  hitherto  been  at  all  suspected. 

In  short  what  is  specifically  called  the  Reformation 
is  but  one  specially  conspicuous  stage  of  a  process  that 
has  been  going  on  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  man.  That  process  is  but  the 
progressive  multiplication  of  forms  through  which  to 
express  and  in  which  to  realize  the  steadil}-  unfolding, 
infinitely  varied  spiritual  nature  of  man.     This  might, 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  26S^ 

indeed,  on  first  sight  seem  to  be  contradicted  by  the 
fact  that  multitudes  of  pagan  religions  have  faded 
away  when  brought  into  contact  with  the  religion 
that  has  found  its  surest  acceptance  among  the  people 
of  greatest  intellectual  vigor.  A  further  examination, 
however,  shows  that  while  this  religion  has  proven  it- 
self to  be  in  its  universal  character  the  true  Light  of 
the  World,  in  the  focus  of  which  indeed  no  false  re- 
ligion can  fail  to  be  dissolved  ;  yet  this  Light,  itself, 
shining  through  the  endlessh^  varied  media  of  hu- 
man intelligence,  has  not  failed  and  cannot  fail  to 
flame  out  in  ever  new  splendors  of  color,  progressively 
revealing  the  exhaust  less  wealth  of  its  divine  signifi- 
cance. In  other  words,  just  because  of  this  wealth  of 
significance  it  must  the  more  certainly  appeal  to 
various  types  of  mind  in  correspondingly  various 
w^ays.  And  the  result  of  this  can  be  nothing  else 
than  the  multiplication  of  outer  forms  expressive  of 
the  varying  modes  of  apprehending  the  central  truth 
which  the  Christian  religion  presents. 

It  is  true  that  this  involves  a  vast  amount  of  cari- 
cature, none  the  less  gross  because  unintentional. 
But  it  is  nevertheless  needful  that  the  child — including 
the  immature  man — be  permitted  to  make  the  mis- 
takes-of  childhood  in  order  that  by  the  exercise  of  his 
own  slight  powers  those  powers  may  become  matured 
and  the  child  thus  devolop  into  actual  manhood. 

Nay  this  is  the  central,  divine  secret  of  Christianity 


270  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

itself,  that  it  declares  the  infinite  significance  of  the 
individual ,  and  demands  therefore  that  above  all 
things  the  individual  shall  himself  put  forth  every 
effort  to  unfold  into  richest  maturity  the  divine  nature 
within  him.  Man,  the  thinking  unit,  perpetuallj- 
arising  and  unfolding  in  the  eternal  process  of  Cre- 
ation, that  is  the  ultimate  truth  of  "God  manifest  in 
the  flesh."  That  is  the  highest  term  of  the  "eter- 
nally-begotten Son."  That  is  the  central  conception 
of  Christianity  in  its  truly  Catholic  or  universal  form. 

But  in  the  very  nature  of  things  this  divine  truth 
could  not  be  seized  in  its  full  significance  at  the  first 
moment  of  its  presentation  to  man.  Rather  in  the 
process  of  comprehending  it,  even  after  its  specific 
announcement,  human  intelligence  must  needs  pass 
through  the  stages  of  childhood  and  youth  before  it 
<:ould  arrive  at  maturity.  And  the  stage  of  childhood 
was  the  stage  of  symbolism — Italian  Christianity — 
while  the  age  of  its  youth  was  the  age  of  dawning  re- 
flection— the  Christianity  of  the  Reformation  period. 
In  the  former  stage  the  maturity  or  self-dependence 
of  the  individual  was  not  expected.  He  must  submit 
unreservedly  to  authoritative  guidance.  In  the  latter 
he  was  brought  to  claim  maturity  as  his  right,  but 
was  practically  debarred  from  making  the  claim  good. 
Nor  is  this  phase  of  the  Reformation  even  yet  passed, 
though  at  the  present  day  rapidly  passing. 

Let  us  note  now  summarily,  first,  that  the  Chris- 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  271 

tian  religion  is  distinguished  from  all  others  by  the 
fact  that  it  announces  the  infinite  significance  of  each 
individual  human  being  ;  and  second,  that  I^uther 
simply  formulated  the  legitimate  corollary  from  this 
that  individual  man  has  absolute  right  to  the  full, 
free  exercise  of  his  powers  as  the  necessary  condition 
to  his  own  attainment  to  maturity.  And  let  us  also 
note  at  the  same  time  the  fact  that  while  Christianity 
for  the  first  three  centuries  of  its  existence  was  per- 
force a  non-established  religion,  nevertheless  the  ex- 
istence of  a  religious  organization  otherwise  than  as  a 
phase  of  a  political  organization,  was  as  yet  evidently 
regarded  as  something  wholly  abnormal. 

Doubtless  as  claiming  to  be  the  world-religion, 
Christianity  could  not  at  the  outset  consistently  ally 
itself  with  any  other  than  the  world-empire.  But 
there  was  no  hesitancy  concerning  this  alliance  when 
the  moment  for  its  consummation  arrived.  And 
thenceforth  the  "establishment"  of  Christianity  as 
the  State  religion  in  countries  not  acknowledging  the 
imperial  authority,  was  still  regarded  as  but  the  pro- 
gressive unfolding  into  reality  of  the  ideal  World- 
empire  as  a  Christian  dominion.  If  the  political  or- 
ganization was  unable  independently  to  realize  the 
conquest  of  the  world,  the  Church  believed  in  its  own 
power  to  make  that  conquest  an  accomplished  fact. 

Thus   from  having  been  co-operative  powers,  the 
Church   and   the   Empire   came   to  be    antagonistic 


272  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

powers.  And  we  have  now  to  note  that  if  the  genius 
of  Hildebrand  constructed  an  impassable  barrier  to 
the  fulfillment  of  the  ambitious  schemes  that  had 
been  formed  and  in  part  realized  by  Henry  III,  so 
the  growing  individualism  of  the  Teutonic  peoples 
still  further  kept  in  check  the  absolutist  tendencies  of 
the  imperial  authority,  and  at  length  also  drew  the 
line  of  ultimate  limitation  to  the  fulfillment  of  the 
Papal  dreams  of  absolute  dominion. 

Not  in  that  exclusive  fashion  was  the  principle  of 
Autocracy  to  be  realized.  Rather  it  was  to  be  realized 
in  the  truly  catholic  or  universal  spirit  of  Christiani- 
ty which  demands  that  the  principle  of  autocrac}" 
shall  be  unfolded  in  the  form  of  self  rule  on  the  part 
and  in  the  very  life  of  each  individual  human  soul. 

Such  is  the  true  Christian  ideal.  And  it  was  this 
deeper  phase  of  Christianity  which  Luther  definitely 
announced  in  the  Declaration  of  Religious  Inde- 
pendence which  he  formulated.  And  thus  it  was 
that  Luther  proved  to  be  the  genuine  representative 
of  the  true  spirit  of  individualism  which  first  came  to 
maturity  in  the  Teutonic  world. 

But  again  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that,  the  more 
richly  significant  the  ideal,  only  so  much  the  more 
certainly  must  its  complete  realization  be  long  de- 
layed. The  differentiation  of  the  Christian  church  is 
necessarily  involved  in  the  differentiation  or  unfold- 
ing of  the  principle  of  individualism  which  underlies 


HISTORY    OF   CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  273 

the  very  existence  of  that  church.  At  first,  however, 
this  fact  was  by  no  means  clearly  recognized  by  the 
reformers.  It  was  only  when  forced  to  do  so  that 
they  accepted  this  as  a  logical  consequence  of  their 
protests  against  arbitrary  rule. 

It  is  significant,  too,  that  the  individualism  which 
they  looked  upon  as  the  vital  one  was  not  personal, 
but  political.  Each  state  might  determine  its  own 
form  of  worship.  And  this  really  meant  that  each 
ruler  of  a  state  might  decide  the  form  of  worship  for 
all  individuals  under  his  authority.  Thus  far  the 
principle  of  autocracy  was  specialized.  And  because 
the  autocrat  or  ruler  would  probably  represent  the 
spirit  of  at  least  a  majority  of  his  subjects,  the  true 
spirit  of  autocracy  was  thus  specialized  to  a  greater 
degree  than  would  at  first  sight  appear.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  the  "autocracy" 
of  the  subject  in  such  case  must  be  not  genuine,  but 
merely  on  sufferance — a  change  of  rulers  rendering 
possible  a  complete  reversal  of  forms  of  worship. 

Indeed  there  was  anxious  solicitude  for  the  restraint 
of  the  individual  member.  Left  to  himself  he  must 
follow  his  own  unchecked  fancies  and  soon  wander 
into  ruinous  heresies  of  thought  and  deed.  And  it 
was  not  for  a  moment  doubted  that  the  authority  of 
the  state  was  required  as  at  least  a  supplementary  re- 
straining power.  Nor  can  there  be  any  reasonable 
doubt  that  this  is  true  ;  though  as  yet  there  was  \>y 


274  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

no  means  a  clear  understanding  as  to  the  proper  line 
of  distinction  between  the  political  and  the  religious 
authority  as  a  restraining  power. 

It  is  true  that  this  differentiation  of  function  had 
already  reached  an  advanced  stage.  The  State  was 
especially  watchful  against  heresies  of  deed,  as  the 
Church  was  especially  sensitive  in  respect  of  heresies 
of  thought.  But  that  these  two  functions  should  still 
be  joined  under  the  ultimate  authority  of  the  ruler  of 
the  State  there  had  arisen  no  shadow  of  doubt. 
Rather  the  separate  existence  of  Church  and  State 
was  without  hesitation  assumed  to  involve  an  ex- 
tremely perilous  relation  between  Church  and  State. 

And  so  the  ideal  of  Henry  III  reappeared.  The 
Church  as  the  established  religion  of  the  State  and  as 
thus  dependent  upon  the  State  for  its  support,  was 
already  subordinated  to  the  will  of  the  ruler  of  the 
State.  Hence  it  could  be  used  by  him  as  simply  a 
part  of  the  political  machinery  at  his  disposal  and 
through  which  he  might  accomplish  his  own  pur- 
poses. And  from  the  English  Henry  VIII  to  the 
German  Bismarck  how  many  conspicuous  examples 
does  history  furnish  to  show  that  the  possession  of 
this  power  presents  a  temptation  too  great  to  be  re- 
sisted !     The  extent  to  which  the  Church  of  England 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  275 

especially  has  been  put  to  us*e  as  a  political  engine  is 
sufficiently  well-known.^ 

In  fact,  it  was  largely  the  reaction  against  the  Eng- 
lish Church  as  a  political  engine  that  determined  the 
precise  character  of  the  American  commonwealth. 
For  that  reaction  was  the  reaffirmation  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  individualism  or  autocracy  in  its  ultimate  sig- 
nificance. And  this  reaction  could  with  least  hin- 
drance and  delay  be  developed  into  its  positive  form 
in  a  country  remaining  to  be  peopled  by  a  civilized 
race. 

This  appears  the  more  significant,  too,  the  farther 
one  looks  back  along  the  stream  of  events  that  led  to 
the  settling  of  America  by  refugees  from  Europe. 
From  the  Saxon  Heptarchy  through  the  Norman  Con- 
quest and  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  to  the  American 
Revolution,  there  is  one  continuous  process  of  nat- 
ural selection.  And  ''American"  is  rather  the  name 
of  a  peculiar  type  of  mental  and  moral  development 
than  the  name  of  a  resident  of  a  particular  country. 
Doubtless  in  this  sense  Americans  were  born  before 
Columbus  sailed  across  the  Atlantic  ;  but  each  was 
thus  "a  man  without  a  country."  Only  since  the 
"Treaty  of  Paris"  have  the  increasing  millions  of 
such  souls  known  precisely  whither  they  should  go 


^The  extreme  logical  outcome  of  all  this  is  of  course  to  be 
seen  in  its  greatest  fullness  of  practical  illustration  in  the 
case  of  the  Greek  Church  in  Russia,  reduced,  since  the 
time  of  Peter  the  Great,  to  absolute  subordination  to  the  State 


276  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

in  search  of  what  in  deepest  sense  is  their  true  native 
land.  And  no  matter  at  what  particular  spot  on  the 
surface  of  this  planet  he  may  have  first  seen  the  light, 
unless  a  man  belong  essentially  to  that  type  he  is  not 
an  American,  but  an  alien  to  all  that  gives  signifi- 
cance to  the  name. 

The  true  autocrat  is  the  self-ruled  man,  and  that  is 
the  typical  American.  Self-ruled,  and  therefore  is 
he  the  direct  opposite  of  the  lawless  man,  the  an- 
archist, who  will  have  no  rule — who  will  least  of  all 
rule  himself. 

And  so  it  is  in  America  that  the  Christian  Ideal  has 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  been 
given  explicit  utterance  in  its  ultimate  significance 
through  the  social  organism.  Here  is  the  true  mon- 
archy— not  the  rule  of  one  man,  for  that  must  vary 
with  each  succeeding  reign,  nay  with  the  successive 
caprices  of  each  individual  ruler — but  rather  the  rule 
of  the  one  unalterable  Principle  of  Freedom,  in- 
volving identity  of  nature  and  therefore  equality  of 
rights  for  all  the  Brotherhood  of  Man.  The  true 
"monarchy"  is  based  upon  the  legitimate  kingship, 
not  of  one  man,  nor  of  some  men,  but  of  all  men. 

So  well  indeed  was  this  Ideal  understood  by  the 
founders  of  the  American  Union  that  the  functions  of 
the  religious  organization  were  by  them  completely 
differentiated  from  those  of  the  political  organization. 
The  church  was  no  longer  to  be  considered  as  an  in- 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  277 

stitution  of  such  doubtful  validity  that  its  perpetuity 
could  be  insured  only  on  condition  of  guaranteeing 
its  support  by  the  State.  At  the  same  time  its  sa- 
credness  was  so  far  recognized  as,  by  its  complete 
separation  from  the  State,  to  at  least  negatively  secure 
its  freedom  from  perversion  to  other  than  its  legiti- 
mate functions.  Not  because  the  American  people  are 
indifferent  to  religion  is  the  name  of  Divinity  omitted 
from  their  Constitution,  but  because  the  entire  spirit 
of  the  people,  as  voiced  in  that  document,  is  pervaded 
by  the  profoundest  faith  in  the  divine  governance  of 
the  world  and  in  the  divine  destiny  of  man  as  the 
genuine  Son  of  God. 

Thus,  for  the  first  time  since  the  first  three  cen- 
turies of  its  existence,  could  the  Christian  religion  as- 
sume without  artificial  hindrance  a  form  consonant 
with  the  Spirit  in  which  it  was  received  by  its 
votaries.  If  a  group  of  Christians  differed  as  to  the 
proper  mode  of  worship,  or  as  to  the  precise  form  of 
Christian  doctrine — that  is,  if  there  proved  to  be  a 
well-marked  difference  in  their  mode  of  apprehend- 
ing the  fundamental  truths  of  Christianity — nothing 
more  was  needed  to  reduce  the  antagonism  to  its 
lowest  terms  than  to  separate  into  distinct  congrega- 
tions and  develop  in  each  group  what  seemed  to  it 
the  legitimate  mode  of  embodying  those  truths. 

Discussions,  often  angry,  sometimes  unseemly,  no 
doubt  resulted.     But  it  is  also  true  that  these  discus- 


278  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

sions  had  the  inestimable  value  of  concentrating  at- 
tention upon  what  were  believed  to  be  fundamental 
questions.  And  this  was  the  one  sure  way  of  discov- 
ering at  length  where  lay  trivialities  and  where  lay 
the  essentials  of  truth. 

Meanwhile  it  is  not  to  be  much  wondered  at  that 
Hegel,  with  all  his  marvelous  powers  of  dialectic, 
should  still  be  so  far  a  victim  to  the  bias  of  his  time 
and  immediate  surroundings  as  to  mistake  this  pro- 
cess of  differentiation  for  a  process  of  disintegration. 
Sects  were  at  that  time  multiplying  so  rapidly  as  that 
dissolution  might  well  be  thought  to  have  fairly 
set  in. 

But  this  very  freedom  of  division  proved  to  be  the 
means  of  its  own  cancellation.  Differences  which  at 
firstseemed  vital  proved  under  the  light  of  discussion 
and  mature  deliberation  to  be  but  incidental  and  tran- 
sitory. The  homogeneity  of  sentiment  that  consti- 
tutes the  deep-lying  basis  of  the  American  Brother- 
hood, also  proved  to  be  a  check  to  ecclesiastical  di- 
vision. With  no  established  church  political  senti- 
ment served  rather  to  allay  than  to  intensify  religious 
strife — a  fact  not  less  significant  than  novel  in  the 
history  of  humanity.  And  if  the  r-esistanee  of  North- 
ern and  Southern  divisions  of  many  of  the  denomi- 
nations seems  to  contradict  this,  still  even  here  there 
is  rather  confirmation  than  contradiction.  For  with 
the  vanishing  of  slavery  there  vanished  also  the  only 


HISTORY   OF   CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  279 

real  ground  of  both  political  and  religious  division. 
And  that  division  even  as  a  sentiment  is  now  being 
rapidly  succeeded  by  both  political  and  religious  fra- 
ternity. 

But  this  tendency  toward  unity — has  that  no  nat- 
ural limit  short  of  the  actual  merging  of  all  denomi- 
nations into  one  United  Church  of  America?  Let 
us  attempt  to  find  a  reasonable  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion. 

To  say  that  man  is  a  progressive  being  is  as  much 
as  to  say  that  man  is  an  imperfect  being.  And  im- 
perfect as  he  is  it  would  seem  that  the  only  security 
against  fatal  one-sidedness  in  his  development,  is  to 
give  free  play  to  his  tendency  to  inquiry  and  experi- 
mentation. There  are  opposite  tendencies  that  bal- 
ance one  another  in  the  human  world  no  less  than  in 
the  inorganic.  What  at  one  time  seemed  mere  an- 
tagonism between  the  principle  of  local  and  that  of 
central  government,  is  now  recognized  by  all  thought- 
ful Americans  North  and  South,  as  being  only  a 
reciprocal  relation.  Local  government  is  but  the 
mode  through  which  a  general  government  becomes 
realized  in  its  richest  significance.  The  general  gov- 
ernment is  the  focal  power  through  which  local  gov- 
ernment is  rendered  perfectly  secure  and  vital. 

And  now  comes  the  claim,  repeated  again  and 
again,  that  by  analogy  the  religious  organization  of 
the   people   should  be  extended  and  unified  on  the 


280  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

same  grand  scale.  Economy  of  power,  increase  of 
efficiency;  these  are  the  complementary  aspects  of  the 
gain  that  is  thought  to  be  necessarily  involved  in  the 
merging  of  all  (Protestant)  denominations  in  a 
United  Church  of  America.  ^  Thus  the  Christian  Ideal 
which  is  given  its  ultimate  political  form  in  America 
would  unfold  in  the  same  land  into  its  ultimate  mode 
of  religious  development.  Protestantism,  after  reso- 
lutely separating  itself  from  the  tyrannies  of  the  Old 
World,  would  thus  at  length  unfold  into  the  fully 
rounded  form  of  Freedom  in  the  New  World. 

The  vision  is  an  attractive  one.  And  doubtless 
what  renders  it  attractive  is  just  the  undeniable  germ 
of  truth  which  the  vision  involves.  But  for  all  that, 
doubts  still  force  themselves  to  the  surface  when  one 
thinks  of  the  form  which  the  vision  assumes. 

That  germ  of  truth  consists  in  the  fact  that  there  is 
strength  in  union.  But  while  this  may  be  beyond 
doubt  as  a  general  proposition,  it  is  equally  true  that 
there  are  modes  of  union  and  degrees  of  unification 
the  result  of  which  must  inevitably  be  a  reduction 
rather  than  an  increase  of  strength.  It  is  the  "glit- 
tering generality"  that  is  alluring — so  alluring  often 
as  to  cause  forgetfulness  of  irreconcilable  differences. 


^Of  course  the  Catholic  Church  could  uot  be  thought  of  as 
entering  into  a  scheme  like  this,  since  it  could  logically  con- 
sider no  other  union  than  that  which  would  take  the  form  of 
the  complete  submission  of  all  Protestant  denominations  to 
and  the  complete  merging  of  them  in  the  one  "Catholic" 
Church. 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  281 


0 


Arguments  from  analogy  are  no  doubt  indis- 
pensable and  highly  serviceable.  But  it  is  equally 
true  that  they  are  never  wholly  safe  arguments.  In 
them  similarities  are  emphasized  and  differences 
slurred  over.  And  the  captivating  scheme  of  a  "United 
Church  in  the  United  States,"  appears  fatally  defec- 
tive on  just  this  ground.  For  the  religious  life  of 
man  presents  characteristics  fundamentally  difterent 
from  those  of  his  political  life.  It  is  true  that  the 
religious  life  and  the  political  life  are  but  different  as- 
pects of  the  same  life.  But  that  is  far  from  lessening 
the  importance  of  the  fact  that  the}^  are  different  as- 
pects, and  that  they  must  therefore  demand  corres- 
pondingly different  means  and  methods  for  their  de- 
velopment. 

Political  freedom  is  secured  by  the  organic  union 
of  man  with  man.  Religious  freedom  is  secured  by 
the  organic  union  of  man  with  God.  True,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  these  are  still  but  different  aspects 
of  the  same  truth.  Doubtless  man  can  be  organically 
united  with  man  only  through  the  divine  in  man. 
And  doubtless  man  can  be  organically  united  with 
God  only  through  the  co-operation  of  man  with 
man  in  the  struggle  to  unfold  into  reality  the  divine 
nature  which  is  implicit  in  every  human  being.  But 
there  remains  a  specific  functional  difference  to  which 
there  must  ever  pertain  a  corresponding  difference  of 
structure. 


282  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

lu  each  case,  too,  there  is  both  a  positive  and  a 
negative  aspect  to  the  process  of  unification.  Nega- 
tively the  process  of  political  unification  has  for  its 
purpose  first  of  all  to  protect  man  from  man  in  respect 
of  physical  violence.  On  the  other  hand  religious 
unification  has  for  its  negative  purpose  to  protect  in- 
dividual man  from  himself  in  respect  of  error  in 
thought  and  desire.  The  State  is  an  indispensable 
institution  whose  chief  negative  function  is  to  re- 
strain men  from  violent  deeds — deeds  that  are  con- 
trary to  reason.  The  Church  is  an  indispensable  in- 
stitution whose  chief  negative  function  is  to  restrain 
men  from  violent  opinions — opinions  that  are  con- 
trary to  reason.  Again,  political  unification  has 
for  its  positive  purpose  to  provide  man  with  such 
means  to  the  full  realization  of  that  phase  of  his  free- 
dom which  is  expressed  in  his  deeds,  as  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  he  cannot  as  an  individual  provide  for 
himself.  And  religious  unification  has  for  its  posi- 
tive purpose  to  provide  the  individual  with  such 
means  to  the  full  realization  of  that  phase  of  his  free- 
dom which  is  unfolded  in  his  thought  and  sentiment, 
as  he  cannot  in  the  nature  of  the  case  as  an  indi- 
vidual provide  for  himself. 

Restraint  from  what  is  irrational ,  aid  toward  what 
IS  rational — these  are  the  complementary  phases  of 
the  function,  both  of  State  and  of  Church.  But  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  on  the  one  side  the  restraint  and 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  283 

the  aid  are  alike  primarily  physical;  while  on  the 
other  side  the  restraint  and  the  aid  are  alike  spiritual. 
Doubtless  both  the  State  and  the  Church  have  edu- 
cational functions  to  perform.  But  with  the  State, 
Education — the  symmetrical  unfolding  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  powers  of  the  individual — must 
ever  be  a  means  ;  while  with  the  Church  it  must  ever 
be  an  end.  Preservation  of  society  as  a  whole  is  the 
supreme  aim  of  political  organization.  Preservation 
and  normal  growth  of  the  individual  is  the  supreme 
aim  of  religious  organization.  And,  let  us  repeat, 
these  contrasted  functions  are  none  the  less  to  be  re- 
garded as  fundamentally  distinct  because  they  also 
merge  into  one  another  and  prove  to  be  but  comple- 
mentary phases  of  the  larger  functions  of  human  so- 
ciety as  a  whole. 

And  now,  having  thus  briefly  indicated  the  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  State  and  the  Church, 
both  in  function  and  in  final  aim,  we  may  next  pro- 
ceed to  inquire  :  What  are  the  natural  limits  of  or- 
ganized religious  union  ?  Or,  in  other  words  :  What 
constitutes  a  church  as  a  truly  organic  unit  ? 

The  clew  to  a  reasonable  answer  to  this  question 
may  be  found  in  the  fact  already  indicated  that  indi- 
vidualism in  its  richest  significance  is  the  central  con- 
ception of  the  Christian  faith.  And  it  is  but  a  logical 
inference  from  this  that  the  supreme  aim  of  a  Chris- 
tian   Church    should    be  :  the  securing    for  its  indi- 


284  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

vidual  members  such  conditions,  negative  and  posi- 
tive, as  will  most  conduce  to  the  symmetrical  devel- 
opment of  each  as  an  individual.  And  here  the  most 
vital  and  permanent  interests  of  the  individual  are 
those  directly  concerned.  If  the  State  has  especially 
to  secure  the  individual  in  his  temporal  interests, 
the  Church  has  especially  to  provide  means  for  the 
increased  vSecurity  of  the  individual  in  his  eternal  in- 
terests. The  intellectual  and  moral  state  of  the  indi- 
vidual— the  orthodoxy  of  his  belief  and  the  morality 
of  his  conduct — these  especially,  nay  these  exclusively, 
it  is  the  mission  of  the  Church  to  cherish  into  fullest 
vitality.  For  the  unfolding  of  these  into  living 
reality  constitutes  that  process  which  is  known  as 
genuine  spiritual  regeneration. 

This  accomplished,  all  else  follows.  In  the  degree 
that  reasonable  belief  and  right  conduct  are  matured 
in  the  individual,  in  like  degree  must  he  prove  him- 
self to  be  an  exemplary  man  and  a  faithful  citizen. 
That  is,  the  more  richly  unfolded  he  becomes  as  an 
individual  the  more  richly  developed  his  social  life 
proves  to  be,  and  vice  versa.     . 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  Church  is  an  organi- 
zation which,  more  specifically,  has  for  its  supreme 
office,  first,  the  formulation  of  the  beliefs  that  men 
should  adopt  with  reference  to  the  intrinsic  and  ab- 
solutely permanent  phases  of  their  own  nature  and 
destiny;    secondly,  the  providing    a  system  of    prin- 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  285 

ciples  for  the  guidance  of  men  in  their  conduct,  and 
thirdly,  the  furnishing  practical  aid  toward  the  indi- 
vidual's self-realization  in  both  these  respects.  To 
show  men  what  is  the  ultimate  Ideal  of  man,  and  to 
guide  them  as  individuals  toward  the  fulfilment  of 
that  Ideal — that  is  the  mission  of  the  Church. 

Thus  there  are  seen  to  be  two  special  phases  of  the 
organic  unfolding  of  a  religious  body  which  would 
seem  to  determine  from  within  the  body  itself  the 
limits  of  its  own  healthy  expansion.  The  church  is, 
in  fact,  a  human  institution  progressively  developing 
toward  completeness  as  an  embodiment  of  man's  pro- 
gressively expanding  conception  of  a  divine  Truth 
which  in  itself  is  unchanging.  And  for  this  reason 
it  is  inevitable  that  with  widely  varying  mental 
habits — as  for  example  those  already  cited  of  the 
Romance  peoples  on  the  one  hand  and  of  the  Teu- 
tonic peoples  on  the  other — there  should  arise  specific 
differences  of  organic  form.  And,  according  to  the 
vigor  and  individualism  shown  in  the  mental  consti- 
tution of  a  people,  by  so  much  the  more  must  varieties 
develop  within  the  limits  of  the  species.  And  just  this 
characteristic  we  have  seen  to  belong  especially  to 
the  Teutonic  peoples. 

Here  as  elsewhere  specific  difference  of  functional 
activity  or  vital  process  must  result  in  corresponding 
specific  difference  of  organic  form.  In  the  religious 
world  it  unfolds  itself  as  a  process  of  differentiation, 


286  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

resulting  in  multiplication  of  specifically  different  and 
hence  independent  or  mutually  exclusive  organiza- 
tions. 

On  the  other  hand  the  true  reciprocal  of  this  pro- 
cess is  to  be  found,  as  already  intimated,  in  absolutely 
free  discussion,  which  constitutes  the  more  definite 
phase  of  the  process  of  natural  selection  in  this 
sphere,  and  through  which  no  opinions  other  than 
those  that  possess  some  germ  of  truth  can  long  sur- 
vive. It  is  thus  that  the  multiplication  of  sects  is 
kept  within  natural  or  rational  limits. 

It  is  next  to  be  noted  that  the  tendency  toward 
heterogeneity  is  on  the  one  hand  a  mark  of  relative 
immaturity.  The  multiplication  of  varieties  in  church 
organization  is  based  upon  multiform  modes  of  com- 
prehending one  and  the  same  truth.  But  it  is  equally 
important  to  note  that  the  individual  can  neither  ar- 
rive at,  nor  even  so  much  as  take  the  first  step 
toward,  maturity  as  an  individual  otherwise  than  by 
the  exercise  of  his  own  mental  powers — otherwise 
than  by  exerting  those  powers  for  the  specific  pur- 
pose of  comprehending  that  Truth.  If  therefore  the 
supreme  mission  of  the  church  is  to  be  fulfilled,  it 
must  include  this  very  phase  of  development.  The 
multiplication  of  sects  is  one  necessary  phase  in  the 
unrestricted  organic  development  of  the  church. 

On  the  other  hand  with  increasing  maturity  of 
mental   power,    men    discover   the   one-sidedness   ot 


HIvSTORY    OF   CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  287 

their  opinions  and  recognize  the  extent  to  which  ap- 
parently contradictory  opinions  are  in  reality  only 
complementary  ones.  Thus  there  is  brought  about  a 
return  toward  uniformity.  But  this  "return"  is  none 
the  less  an  advance.  And  the  uniformity  reached  is 
found  to  be  vitally  different  from  that  which  existed 
primarily.  The  initial  uniformity  in  church  organ- 
ization was  implicit  only.  It  had  its  ground,  not  in 
thought,  but  rather  in  lack  of  thought.  The  uni- 
formity arrived  at  in  later  times  is  explicit,  though  it 
can  of  course,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  never  be 
more  than  approximate.  It  has  its  ground  in  the 
very  process  of  the  development  of  thought.  And 
thus  at  every  stage  it  presents  increasingly  rich  va- 
riety, i.  e. ,  multiplied  evidences  of  maturing  vigor. 
The  first  is  the  uniformity  of  a  vacuum.  The  second 
is  the  unison  of  a  world  rich  in  harmonious,  vitalized 
forms.  With  uniformity  of  inner  substance  or  vital 
principle  there  is  multiformity  of  vital  characteristics 
and  therefore  also  multiformity  of  outer  modes  of 
manifestation  or  embodiment. 

It  thus  appears  evident  that  religious  organization 
is  no  exception  to  the  general  law  that  real  advance 
is  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous  ;  al- 
though the  heterogeneity  in  any  given  instance  is 
nothing  else  than  the  necessary  outcome  of  that  pro- 
cess which  consists  in  differentiation,  in  specializa- 
tion.    In  other  words  it  is  the  outcome  of  that  pro- 


288  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

cess  which  consists  in  the  unfolding  into  its  full  sig- 
nificance and  realized  form  of  that  one  primordial 
principle  or  elementary  Truth  which  underlies  and 
gives  vitality  to  the  whole  movement. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  this  fulfilment  or 
realization  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  Chris- 
tianity, is  something  that  takes  place  progressively, 
and  that  this  progressive  development  occurs  b}^  no 
means  uniformly  over  the  world-  The  ultimate  Ideal 
o-f  Christianity — that  the  typical  nature  of  man  is  one 
with  the  divine  Nature — is  indeed  something  in  it- 
self absolute  and  unchanging.  But  on^  the  other 
hand  it  is  inconceivable  that  when  this  Ideal  was 
first  announced  it  should  have  been  at  all  adequately 
comprehended  even  by  the  few  whose  minds  were 
best  prepared  to  receive  it  and  appreciate  its  sublime 
import  ;  while  it  cannot  reasonably  be  regarded  as 
anything  strange  that  to  the  many  such  announce- 
ments should  seem  a  mere  vagary  either  foolish  or 
blasphemous.  Nay,  even  after  centuries  of  mental 
and  moral  development  the  ultimate  significance  of 
this  Ideal  is  yet  but  very  imperfectly  apprehended  by 
the  average  Christian  ;  while  to  many  it  is  still  a 
stumbling-block  or  a  mere  absurdity.  So  that  the 
more  closely  the  progress  thus  far  made  is  examined 
only  by  so  much  the  more  meagre  does  it  seem  to  be 
in  comparison  with  the  boundless  range  of  the  still 
unfulfilled  phases  of  possible  development. 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  289 

Meanwhile  there  is  one  thing  at  least  that  has  be- 
come fairly  evident  to  many  minds  and  is  rapidly  be- 
coming evident  to  many  more.  And  that  is  that  this 
divine  Ideal  which  it  is  the  peculiar  merit  of  Chris- 
tianity to  have  clearly  presented  to  and  to  have  per- 
sistently urged  upon  the  attention  of  humanity,  nec- 
essarily involves  the  right  and  duty  of  each  human 
being  to  unfold  for  himself  in  his  own  life  this  divine 
nature  common  to  all.  And  in  this  growing  convic- 
tion there  is  necessarily  implied  a  further  one — 
namely  :  that,  as  each  individual  is  thus  essentially 
an  independent  unit,  having  his  own  special  charac- 
teristics and  placed  as  he  is  in  the  midst  of  an  envir- 
onment never  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  any  other 
individual,  it  must  follow  that  the  very  Ideal  of  man 
which  the  Christian  faith  primarily  presents  in  such 
absolute  uniformity,  must  nevertheless  involve  end- 
less multiformity  in  the  very  process  of  its  realization 
by  and  in  individual  men.  And  so,  once  more,  it 
appears  that  wherever  Protestantism  develops  it 
proves,  and  must  ever  prove,  to  be  but  the  manifes- 
tation of  that  inner,  vital  principle  of  Christianity — 
the  principle  of  divine  Individualism.  And  as  men 
become  increasingly  aware  of  its  true  import  there 
must  ever  in  like  degree  be  developed  a  demand  for 
increasingly  manifold  modes  of  outer  manifestation  or 
embodiment  of  that  principle. 

In  other  words,  Protestantism  is  in  its  very   nature 


290  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

the  perpetual  protest  of  reason  against  any  and  every 
attempt  to  confine  it  solel}^  to  one  single  set  of 
formulas.  The  spirit  of  man,  infinite  in  its  nature, 
refuses  to  be  checked  in  its  development  by  being 
permanentlj^  encased  in  one  and  the  same  mould. 
Nay,  in  the  final  outcome  it  utterly  refuses  to  be 
"moulded"  at  all.  It  claims  to  have  the  inalienable 
right  of  unrestricted  growth  in  accordance  with  the 
divine  type  to  which  it  belongs.  And  this  the  more 
as  it  learns  that  thus  alone  can  it  maintain  itself  as  a 
truly  living  unit. 

It  is  not  for  the  Church  to  "mould"  a  soul,  as  if  it 
were  some  plastic,  inorganic  substance  Rather  it  is 
for  the  Church  to  cultivate  and  train  the  individual 
soul  as  the  most  complex  and  delicate  of  all  organic 
units — keeping  ever  in  view  the  soul's  ow^n  typical 
nature. 

And  if  this  be  indeed  the  mission  of  the  Church, 
then  assuredly  its  outer  forms  and  formulas  must  be 
ever  maintained  in  a  state  of  organic  mobility.  For 
they  are  but  the  outer  modes  of  the  inner  spiritual  vi- 
tality of  the  Church  itself.  And  with  the  unfolding 
of  that  inner  life  the  outer  form  must  be  ever  in  pro- 
cess of  modification,  so  as  to  maintain  continued  ad- 
justment to  that  life.  Permanent  incrustation  can 
have  no  other  effect  than  the  death  of  the  organic 
unit  thus  enclosed. 

And  here  we  have  to  note  another  specific  differ- 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION,  291 

ence  between  political  and  religious  life  as  expressed 
or  developed  in  a  community.  It  is  this  :  States 
never  interfuse.  Their  boundaries  are  sharpl}^  de- 
fined in  space.  In  religious  organization,  on  the  con- 
trary, space  boundaries  are  indifferent.  Here  indeed 
the  boundaries  are  qualitative  rather  than  quanti- 
tative. They  are  to  be  found  not  in  space  but  in 
difference  of  mental  habit.  No  two  states  can  co- 
exist within  the  same  space-limits.  And  because  of 
this  mutual  exclusion  the  natural  barriers  presented 
in  the  forms  of  the  earth's  surface  have  ever  been 
found  to  be  an  essential  factor  in  determining  the 
boundaries  of  nations.  On  the  other  hand,  with  the 
specific  differences  of  mental  habit  certain  to  be  pos- 
sessed by  the  various  inhabitants  of  a  given  region, 
especially  as  the  region  becomes  densely  populated, 
and  still  more  if  the  people  are  characterized  by 
vigorous  individualism,  it  is  evident  that  since  the 
function  of  a  church  is  to  embody  the  specific  convic- 
tions of  its  members  in  clearly  defined  forms,  there 
must  inevitably  arise  many  and  various  church. or- 
ganizations within  the  same  territory.  Indeed  many 
parishes  must  practically  coincide,  while  not  infre- 
quently members  of  several  differently  organized 
parishes  will  be  found  under  the  same  roof. 

It  would  thus  seem  that  the  natural  limits  of  a  re- 
ligious organization  do  not  consist  of  lines  drawn  in 
space,  but  rather  that  those  limits  are  to  be  found  in 


292  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

certain  characteristic  habits  and  tendencies  of  mind, 
the  outer  form  of  which  must  consist  of  correspondingly 
different  creeds  and  ceremonial.  So  that  no  one 
form  can  possibly  suffice  for  the  spiritual  needs  of 
Christendom. 

And  this  brings  us  to  repeat  that  the  existence  of 
these  specific  differences  of  mental  habit  is  a  mani- 
festation of  mental  and  moral  vigor.  It  reveals  a 
healthy  state  of  spiritual  development.  And  hence 
any  tendency  to  repress  this  free  unfolding  of  the  in- 
dividual mind — involving  as  this  tendency  does  its 
own  corrective,  namely  perfect  freedom  of  mutual 
criticism — is  in  its  very  nature  reactionary  rather 
than  progressive,  and  so  far  as  it  has  practical  effect 
can  only  result  in  hindrance  to  the  spread  of  vital 
Christianity.  For  vital  Christianity,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, places  infinite  emphasis  upon  the  divine  nature 
of  the  individual  and  hence  insists  upon  the  right  and 
duty  of  the  individual  to  unfold  into  reality  this  di- 
vine nature  in  his  own  life,  and  to  do  this  with  the 
utmost  energy  and  rapidity  as  being  the  one  legiti- 
mate purpose  of  his  existence. 

And  if  this  seems  to  present  the  egoistic  aspect  too 
prominently,  we  have  only  to  note  that  egoism  and 
altruism  are  in  truth  not  conflicting  modes,  but 
rather  complementary  phases  of  the  one  true  mode 
prescribed  by  Christianity  itself  for  the  realization  of 
the  highest  ideal  of  humanity.      "He  that  loseth  his 


HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  293 

life,"  in  its  capricious,  narrowly  egoistic  aspects,  and 
does  so  for  the  sake  of  the  typical  Man,  for  the  sake 
of  the  divine  nature  in  all  men,  he  it  is  who  finds  his 
life  in  its  truest  significance.  A  reasonable  altruism 
is  the  one  only  means  of  attaining  the  highest  egoistic 
results. 

It  is  ^vorth  observing,  too,  that  the  gradual  en- 
largement of  the  individual's  own  life  through  the 
free  play  of  his  own  powers,  stimulated  as  they  must 
ever  be  to  the  fullest  and  most  healthful  activity 
through  unrestrained  criticism  of  individual  by  indi- 
vidual, must  tend  ever  to  secure  to  the  virtue  of  tol- 
erance a  more  and  more  rational  character.  It  is  true 
that  just  as  there  are  yet  many  men  who  persuade 
themselves  that  a  man's  faithfulness  as  a  citizen  is  to 
be  measured  by  his  recklessness  as  a  partisan,  so 
there  are  still  to  be  found  those  who  persuade  them- 
selves that  a  man's  faithfulness  as  a  Christian  is  to 
be  measured  by  the  recklessness  of  his  adherence  to 
some  denominational rr(?^^.  But  the  "independents" 
in  both  the  political  and  the  religious  world  are 
steadil}^  increasing  in  number,  and  with  continued 
freedom  of  discussion  must  continue  so  to  increase. 
And  if  this  absolute  freedom  of  discussion  is  a  neces- 
sary phase  in  the  education  of  a  self-governing  people 
politically,  so  it  is  none  the  less  a  necessary  phase  in 
the  religious  education  of  man.  Thus  only  can  the 
essentially    Christian   principle   of  Individualism  be 


294  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

unfolded  into  concrete  reality — a  result  that  could 
hardly  fail  to  be  indefinitely  delayed  by  the  merging 
of  all  denominations  into  one  with  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  smothering  freedom  of  inquirj^  and  dis- 
cussion in  respect  of  religious  themes. 

We  have  said  that  the  Church  is  a  human  institu- 
tion expressive  of  human  convictions  respecting  a 
divine  principle.  It  seems  needful  to  add  that  the 
Church  is  made  up  of  human  beings  with  human 
passions,  and  that  for  this  reason  were  the  Church 
once  fairly  established  in  America  as  a  single  organ- 
ization with  "maximum  efficiency,"  there  must  then 
be  overwhelming  temptation  to  use  its  vast  power 
for  the  purposes  of  determining  political  results.  The 
Church  must  once  more  become  ambitious  of  ruling 
the  State.  Even  now  it  is  a  sufficiently  conspicuous 
fact  that  some  of  the  stronger  denominations  have 
put  forth  efforts,  and  not  without  result,  in  that  di- 
rection. And  in  this  field  what  begins  in  more  or 
less  timid  suggestion  would  be  only  too  likelv  to  ad- 
vance toward  confident  and  even  arrogant  dictation. 

Nay,  in  such  case,  "political"  methods  must  enter 
more  and  more  into  the  ver}^  life  of  the  Church  itself. 
In  other  words  corrupting  influences  must  play  a 
larger  part  in  proportion  as  the  prize  of  power  becomes 
more  luring  to  ambitious  men.  As  it  is,  the  American 
State  has  nothing  to  fear  and  much  to  hope  for  from 
the  influence  of  the  Church  as  exercised  in  its  own 


HISTORY    OF   CHURCH    ORGANIZATION.  295 

legitimate  field.  As  it  would  be,  with  a  single  gi- 
gantic Church  organization,  the  State  must  be  ever 
on  the  defensive  against  the  Church.  And  this  must 
tend  inevitably  toward  reversion  to  an  "established" 
Church  under  control  of  the  State.  Strange  attitude 
for  America  while  England  is  struggling  toward  dis- 
establishment ! 

It  appears  then  that  the  plea  of  maximum  efficiency 
is  a  delusive  one  so  far  as  it  is  to  be  gained  by  the 
union  of  churches.  Increase  of  efiiciency  as  regards 
external  authority  might  indeed  be  attained  for  a 
time.  But  this  could  be  only  at  the  expense  of  that 
efiiciency  that  comes  from  perfect  soundness  of  inner 
life.  And  the  genuineness  of  this  latter  efficiency 
can  be  proven  in  no  other  way  than  by  the  Church 
directing  all  its  powers  with  perfect  "singleness  of 
heart"  to  one  end.  And  that  end  is  the  awakening 
of  men  to,  and  the  convincing  them  of,  the  truth  as 
regards  their  own  natures,  with  their  consequent  con- 
version from  the  way  of  Death  to  the  way  of  lyife. 

As  a  final  word  it  may  be  added  that  Christianity 
has  long  since  proved  itself  to  be  possessed  of  inex- 
tinguishable vitality  by  refusing  to  be  limited  to  de- 
nominational rolls  of  membership.  The  Phariseeism 
that  insists  upon  the  restriction  of  the  name  Christian 
to  those  who  are  within  the  "Church"  is  constantly 
put  to  shame  by  the  noble  Christian  lives  of  many 


296  HISTORY    OF    CHURCH    ORGANIZATION. 

who  fiud  it  impossible  to  make  profitable  use  of  the 
ceremonial  of  existing  churches. 

Doubtless  such  lives  would  be  still  better  had  they 
the  advantage  of  a  form  of  church  organization  adap- 
ted to  their  needs  and  based  upon  a  creed  consisting 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  Christianity  trans- 
lated out  of  mediaeval  symbolism  into  the  clearer  and 
more  adequate  forms  of  modern  intelligence.  For 
man  is  helped  by  association  with  man.  And  this  is 
no  less  true  of  his  religious  nature  than  in  respect  of 
any  other  phase  of  his  essential  life.  Meanwhile, 
the  sincere  soul,  striving  honestly  to  fulfil  its  des- 
tiny— to  such  soul  the  name  of  Christian  cannot  be 
Christianly  denied.  And  it  is  not  impossible  that  yet 
new  denominations  may  be  required  for  the  help  of 
such  seekers  after  the  divine  life. 


VI. 


THK  HERESY  OF  NON-PROGRESSIVE  OR- 
THODOXY. 


Revelation  involves  two  factors.  The  one  factor  is 
a  receptive  mind.  The  other  factor  is  a  mind  giving 
utterance  to  itself.  The  degree  in  which  the  reve- 
lation is  realized  as  such  will  depend  not  merely 
upon  the  completeness  with  which  the  communicating 
mind  utters  itself,  but  also  upon  the  capacity  of  the 
receiving  mind. 

The  perfect  Mind  must  of  course  give  to  itself  un- 
ceasing, perfect  utterance.  But  only  the  perfect 
Mind  can  perfectly  comprehend  its  own  perfect  ut- 
terance. For  this  reason  an  absolutely  perfect  reve- 
lation is  possible  only  in  the  sense  of  the  eternal  self- 
communication  of  the  perfect  mind  to  the  perfect 
mind. 

For  any  finite  mind  the  divine  revelation  can  never 
be  perfect  ;  though  for  the  normal  finite  mind  that 
revelation  must  be  progressive,  must  be  a  continuous 
approximation  towards  perfection. 

But  now,  since  individual  conscious  units  are 
forever  arising  in  the  eternal  process  of  creation,  that 
special  phase  of  revelation  which  consists  in  the  un- 


298  NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY. 

folding  ot  an  individual  consciousness  as  a  power  to 
comprehend  the  truth  is  manifestly  an  abiding  fac- 
tor, ever  present  in  that  eternal  process.  The 
changing,  the  progressive,  the  struggling  conscious 
unit,  which  has  been  named  "individual"  because  in- 
divisible, that  unit  is  still  only  a  more  richly  endowed 
pulsation  within  the  self-sufficing  conscious  Unit  that 
forever  works  and  moves  all,  while  yet  itself  is  resting 
in  moveless,  eternal  calm.  It  is  this  perfect  activity 
in  perfect  rest  that  constitutes  the  self-conservation  of 
the  ultimate  Energ}-,  the  infinite  self-renewal  of  the 
eternal  "I  am." 

The  phrase  "primitive  revelation"  is  thus  seen  to 
have  two  eternally  valid  meanings.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  is  the  truth  in  its  unchanging  totality,  for- 
ever present  in  all  its  details  to  the  Divine  Conscious- 
ness. On  the  other  hand,  the  primitive  revelation  is 
just  that  primary  phase  of  truth  which  appeals  to  and 
is  received  by  any  and  every  individual  consciousness 
in  the  initial  stage  of  its  development. 

In  this  sense  "primitive,"  so  far  as  it  refers  to 
time  at  all,  merely  indicates  "the  year  one"  of  each 
individual's  life-history  so  far  as  he  is  a  self-conscious 
being.  In  this  respect,  the  Oriental  method  of  chro- 
nology is  the  true  one.  For,  in  the  genuine  king- 
ship of  humanity,  a  new  empire,  destined  to  infinite 
expansion,  is  established  with  the  birth  of  each  new 
soul;  and  the  life  and  reign  of  that  royal  unit  begins 


NON-PROGRKSSIVK    ORTHODOXY.  299 

with  the  initial  elementary  modes  of  its  intelligence, 
just  as  if  no  such  royal  units  had  previously  existed. 

Thus  to  the  individual  created  conscious  unit  it  is 
as  if  the  divine  revelation  were  made  solely  through 
time,  on  special  occasions,  for  the  special  benefit  of 
such  created  conscious  unit.  And  yet,  in  reality,  the 
manifestation  of  the  perfect  Mind  recognized  in  any 
given  case  by  the  created  mind  is  new  to  such  created 
mind,  because  the  latter  is  new  to  the  manifestation. 
The  truth  (that  is,  the  particular  phase  of  truth) 
which  I  learn  to-day  seems  to  me  so  new  that,  for  the 
moment,  I  spontaneousl)'-  assume  it  to  be  an  abso- 
lutely new  development.  xVnd  for  this  reason  I  go 
abroad  proclaiming  it  until  I  am  met  with  the  calm 
assurance  that  the  same  phase  of  truth  had  been 
known  by  others  before  me  before  I  was  born,  before 
the  tongue  I  speak  had  3^et  become  a  living  mode  of 
expression  ;  nay,  that  Truth  is  eternal,  and  that 
hence  no  phase  of  it  can  be  "new,"  save  to  the  con- 
sciousness newly  awakened  to  receive  such  phase. 

The  accumulated  experience  of  the  race  of  man 
does,  indeed,  serve  to  lighten  the  difficulty  of  the  in- 
dividual's development.  But  it  does  not  and  cannot 
relieve  him  from  the  necessity  of  passing  through 
every  single  stage  of  that  development.  In  other 
words,  the  individual  mind  can  become  realized  as 
such  in  no  other  way  than  through  the  exercise  of 
his  own  powers.     Or,  again,  since  man  is  divine   in 


300  NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY. 

nature,  he  is  a  self-unfoldiug  unit.  His  independence 
is  measured  by  the  degree  in  which  he  has  attained 
to  realization  of  the  divine  nature  in  his  own  present 
concrete  life.  And  no  single  phase  of  that  realization 
can  be  attained  by  any  individual  save  through  that 
individual's  own  efforts.  All  the  universe  may  help 
him,  but  onl}^  on  condition  that  he  accept  and  inde- 
pendently make  use  of  that  help. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  this  is  true  of  every 
phase  of  man's  nature, — that  only  by  the  reasonable 
exercise  of  his  own  powers,  whether  of  body  or  of 
will  or  of  intelligence,  can  those  powers  increase. 
Whence  it  is  evident  that  ready-made  opinions  can- 
not make  us  really  wiser  ;  any  more  than  ready- 
made  spectacles  can  make  us  skilful  opticians.  Only 
as  one  thinks  the  truth  can  the  truth  become  really 
one's  own.  Only  by  progressively  knowing  the 
truth,  in  the  sense  of  thoroughly  assimilating  it,  can 
one  unfold  the  divine  nature  within  him,  and  thus 
become  a  self-poised,  genuinely  free  being 

"Ready-made  opinions"  may,  it  is  true,  be  safely 
adopted  by  the  individual  in  the  elementarj-  stages  of 
his  development.  Nay,  doubtless  it  is  exceedingly 
unsafe,  not  to  say  altogether  suicidal,  for  the  indi- 
vidual to  reject  the  opinions  of  his  time  and  race.  It 
can,  indeed,  be  nothing  else  than  the  mark  of  imma- 
turity and  lack  of  wisdom  to  reject   those    opinions 


NON-PROGRESSIVK    ORTHODOXY.  301 

without  being  able  to  give  clear  proof  of  their  inade- 
quacy or  of  their  erroneous  character. 

At  the  same  time  it  would  be  none  the  less  a  mark 
of  immaturity  and  lack  of  wisdom  to  overlook  the 
fact  that  those  opinions  are  themselves  no  more  than 
the  slowly,  and  at  the  best  but  partially,  matured 
fruit  of  human  inquiry.  All  discoveries  are  made 
progressively.  The  magnet  was  discovered  centuries 
ago,  and  it  is  yet  far  from  being  fully  discovered. 
Newton  discovered  the  law  of  gravity.  It  had  been 
known  long  before  his  time  ;  and,  nevertheless,  it  yet 
remains  to  be  perfectly  unfolded.  The  magnet,  like 
any  other  given  physical  centre  of  energy,  is  but  a 
focus  of  relations,  the  total  sum  of  which  relations 
comprises  the  whole  physical  universe.  In  that  uni- 
verse (or,  rather,  aspect  oi  the  universe)  Truth  is  for- 
ever present,  so  far  as  expressed  or  expressible,  in 
physical  relations.  In  this  round  of  relations  there 
is  presented  one  fundamental  phase  of  the  eternally 
perfect  revelation. 

On  the  other  hand,  man's  consciousness  of  that 
phase  of  revelation  can  unfold  by  only  such  slow  de- 
grees as  his  sense  of  scientific  wonder  grows  and 
urges  him  on  to  careful  scientific  investigation.  Thus 
only  can  he  become  aware  of  the  abiding  Truth  thus 
unfolded.  But  precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  his 
investigations  have  been  consistently  carried  forward, 
precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  science  has  become 


302  NON-PROGRKSSIVE    ORTHODOXY. 

a  reality  in  this  world  of  ours,  in  just  that  degree  has 
man  really  become  aware  of  the  abiding  Truth  un- 
folded in  physical  relations.  Precisely  thus,  too,  has 
he  come  to  be  emancipated  from  superstitious  fear, 
from  the  slavish  worship  of  natural  phenomena,  so 
that  at  last  he  stands  erect,  self-assured,  and  (at 
least  relatively)  free. 

Similarly,  that  immeasurabl}^  more  adequate  as- 
pect of  the  Truth  which  pertains  specifically  to  the 
nature  of  the  conscious  unit  is  also  forever  present  in 
perfection  in  the  universe  as  a  whole.  Its  funda- 
mental phases  were  doubtless  felt  in  some  measure, 
however  vaguely,  by  "primitive  man,"  using  the 
phrase  now  in  the  sense  of  the  earliest  living  units  on 
this  earth  that  could  rightly  be  called  minds.  By 
degrees  these  fundamental  phases  were  more  definitely 
recognized,  and  at  length  became  formulated  with 
greater  or  less  approximation  to  accuracj^  and  ade- 
quacy by  the  finest  minds  of  various  peoples  in  suc- 
ceeding ages — by  Confucius,  by  Buddha,  by  Zoroas- 
ter ;  with  far  greater  clearness  by  Moses,  and,  first  of 
all,  with  perfect  precision  and  adequacy  by  the  Son 
of  Man.  Indeed,  the  further  investigation  proceeds — 
the  more  searching  it  becomes — only  so  much  the 
more  manifest  is  it  that,  while  Confucianism  and 
Buddhism  and  Zoroastrianism  and  Mosaism  were 
each  and  all  local,  tentative  formulations  of  the  truth 
concerning  man's  spiritual  nature,  the  formulation 


NON-PROGRESSIVE    ORTHODOXY.  303 

called  Christian  is  essentially  faultless  as  indicating 
the  ultimate  Truth  concerning  the  nature  of  man  and 
his  relation  to  the  supreme  creative  Energy. 

But  even  that  formulation,  precise  and  adequate  as 
it  is  in  principle,  does  not  profess  to  do  more  than 
give  the  clew  to  the  genuine  eternal  life  of  man. 
And  by  this  clew  the  eternal  life  of  man  is  nothing 
else  than  the  progressively  unfolding  concrete  life  of 
each  individual  man  in  accordance  with  the  one  eter- 
nal type  of  all  conceivable  spiritual  units.  "Eternal 
life"  is,  in  realit}^,  nothing  else  for  the  individual 
than  the  ceaseless,  progressive  moulding,  or  rather 
unfolding,  of  his  present  life  into  the  "form  of 
eternity." 

We  are  now  prepared  to  say  that  "Progressive  Or- 
thodoxy" is  nothing  else  than  the  ceaseless  deepen- 
ing and  enlarging  and  clarifying  of  human  opinion 
respecting  the  eternal  Type  to  which  every  individual 
— that  is,  indivisible  or  immortal — spiritual  unit  must 
conform  if  it  is  ever  to  rise  above  a  merely  phantas- 
mal existence.  So  that,  concretely,  Progressive  Or- 
thodoxy may  be  again  defined  as  the  continuous  un- 
folding of  man's  knowledge  of  the  Truth  in  its  spir- 
itual aspect,  whereby  man  brings  into  ever- increasing 
realization  within  his  own  life  that  divine  self- 
consistency  which  constitutes  true  freedom. 

At  best,  indeed,  no  human  formulation  of  the  di- 
vine message  to  man  can  be  more  than   a  dim   inti- 


304  NON-PROGRESSIVE    ORTHODOXY. 

mation  of  what  that  message  is  in  its  full  wealth  of 
significance.  All  Bibles  contain  some  such  formu- 
lation. And,  if  the  Christian  Bible  is  the  best  of  all 
Bibles,  it  is  because  it  presents,  in  consistent  form, 
the  central  thread  of  that  message — the  veritable 
clew  which,  faithfuU}^  followed,  must  lead  to  end- 
lessly progressive  realization  of  eternal  life. 

But  that  clew  is  still  only  a  clew.  Of  itself  it  does 
nothing  and  is  nothing.  Only  when  a  human  soul 
seizes  upon  it,  examines  it,  learns  its  use,  and  uses  it 
persistently  and  intelligently  and  honestly,  only  then 
is  it  of  any  value  whatever.  It  is  a  map,  not  a  coun- 
try. It  is  not  life.  It  is  merel}^  a  guide  to  true 
living. 

And  I  am  to  accept  it  ''just  as  it  is."  There  is, 
indeed,  nothing  else  that  I  so  much  desire  to  do.  I 
want,  above  all,  to  know  its  true,  its  full  import.  I 
want  to  know  all  that  it  is.  And  yet  its  significance 
becomes  richer  with  each  new  examination.  Be- 
comes?  Does  this  guide,  after  all,  change,  then,  and 
with  each  fresh  glance  I  give  it  ?  What  is  it,  then  ? 
And  how  can  I  ever  hope  to  know  it,  to  receive  it, 
"just  as  it  is?" 

Nay,  but  this  is  mere  casuistry.  The  guide  does 
not  change.  It  is  a  perfectly  definite  principle. 
What  I  have  before  me  is  a  finite  formula,  suggest- 
ing the  infinite  import  of  that  principle.  And,  since 
the  guide  does  not  change,  for  that  reason  the  change 


NON-PROGRESSIVK   ORTHODOXY.  305 

is  in  me.  My  mind  expands.  A  thought  new  to  me 
takes  shape  and  reality  in  my  consciousness.  A 
fresh  impulse  arises  in  my  life  with  each  additional 
honest  effort  I  make  to  find  for  myself  the  whole 
truth  contained  in  the  formula. 

Shall  I,  then,  content  myself  with  mere  repetition 
of  the  formula  ?  Or  will  it  be  reasonable  for  me  to 
add  to  the  formula  an  explicit,  progressive  statement 
of  the  various  phases  of  truth  which  I  am  progres- 
sively discovering  to  be  implicitly  contained  in  the 
formula  ? 

Newton  formulated  the  I^aws  of  Falling  Bodies — 
including  their  ultimate  generalization  in  the  Law  of 
Gravity — with  such  precision  that  every  variation 
from  his  formulae  appears  to  have  no  other  result 
than  the  introduction  of  obscurity  or  even  of  actual 
error.  The  Newtonian  formulae  seem  to  be  fault- 
less, and  hence  permanent.  And  yet,  taken  literally 
(and  so  much  the  more  when  taken  separately),, 
these  formulae  are  mere  abstractions.  They  serve  no 
further  purpose  than,  on  the  one  hand,  to  indicate 
vaguely  the  rich  sum  of  relations  existing  in  the 
physical  aspect  of  the  world,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  intimate  the  course  of  study  through  which  one 
may  hope  to  become  increasingly  aware  of  the  beau- 
tiful phases  of  truth  exhibited  in  those  relations. 

So  the  Son  of  Man  gave  concise  formulation  to  the 
fundamental  laws  of  all  spiritual  being.     These  laws,. 


306  NON- PROGRESSIVE    ORTHODOXY. 

necessarily,  are  abstract  statements.  But  they  serve 
to  indicate  the  infinitely  rich  sum  of  relations  exist- 
ing in  the  spiritual  aspect  of  the  world,  and  also  to 
make  plain  the  never-ending  course  of  training  by 
which  one  may  hope  to  become  more  and  more 
clearly  aware  of,  and  in  ever  fuller  degree  to  realize 
in  his  own  life,  the  infinitely  varied  and  surpassingly 
beautiful  phases  of  Truth  forever  unfolded  in  those 
relations. 

Doubtless  any  attempt  to  replace  those  formulae 
could  result  in  nothing  else  than  the  introduction  of 
obscurity  and  error.  For  the  original  Christian 
formulae  prove  under  every  test  to  be  faultless,  and 
hence  permanent.  But  to  suppose  that  any  one  may 
become  a  mature  Christian  through  mere  repetition 
of  those  formulae,  however  devout  and  persistent  the 
repetition  might  be,  is  no  more  reasonable  than  to 
suppose  that  one  can  become  an  accomplished  physi- 
cist by  simple  repetition  of  the  Newtonian  formulae. 

Bach  formulation  of  a  genuine  mode  of  the  divine 
Energy  is  so  far  a  truth.  But  it  is  none  the  less  a 
grave  error  to  assume  that  such  formulation  is  an  ex- 
haustive statement  of  the  truth.  For  this  would,  in 
reality,  be  assuming  that  one  comprehends  at  first 
glance  the  full  significance  of  a  given  fact  or  formula. 

Untruth  creeps  into  human  speech  while  human 
thought  lies  idle.  And  few  of  such  untruths  are  more 
pernicious  than  the  frequent  thoughtless  declaration 


NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY.  307 

that  "first  impressions  are  best  impressions."  One 
need  onlj'-  call  his  thought  into  active  wakefulness  to 
recognize  that  first  impressions  are  commonly  the 
shallowest,  poorest,  least  trustworthy  impressions. 
In  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  they  can  be  no  more 
than  merely  initiatory,  rudimentary.  They  may  re- 
main uncorrected,  undisturbed  ;  but  that  can  be  only 
because  no  actual  examination  of  the  subject  is  ever 
undertaken.  It  is  thus  that  we  may,  and  often  do, 
become  jamiliar  with  objects,  facts,  persons,  while 
yet  remaining  in  utter  ignorance  of  them.  Nay,  we 
may  even  mistake  familiarity  for  knowledge,  and  thus 
unwittingly  make  sure  of  our  ignorance  remaining 
the  more  impenetrable.  A  first  impression  may  in- 
deed be  accurate  enough,  true  enough,  so  far  as  it 
extends.  But,  even  so,  as  "first  impression"  it  can 
scarcely  extend  below  the  surface,  can  scarcely  be 
other  than  superficial.  The  more  complex  the  case, 
the  more  superficial  the  impression.  To  remain  con- 
tent with  such  impressions  is  to  accept  unconsciously 
the  limitations  of  mind  in  its  merely  rudimentary 
stages  of  development.  It  is  to  confine  one's  self  to 
a  merely  mythical  interpretation  of  the  facts  of  the 
world.  It  is,  in  short,  to  repudiate  science  in  all  its 
phases  :  for  science  is  a  process  of  criticism,  of  veri- 
fication. 

Now,  theology  is  a  science.     Or,  rather,    it    may 
properly  be  said  to  be  the  culmination  of  all  science. 


308  NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY. 

In  its  fullest  sense,  science  is  the  study  of  phe- 
nomena, of  manifestation,  of  revelation.  And 
through  this  study  man  is  led  inevitably  to  inquire 
concerning  that  which  is  manifested  or  revealed. 
When  the  latter  phase  of  study  has  so  far  advanced 
that  that  which  is  manifested  is  recognized,  however 
dimly,  as  a  process  of  self- manifestation,  then 
theology,  or  the  science  of  God,  has  entered  upon  its 
realization.  And,  the  further  this  process  of  critical 
investigation  extends,  the  more  matured  does  the 
science  of  divine  things  become. 

Passing  over  pre-Christian  theologies  with  the  re- 
mark that  they  are  nothing  else  than  the  initial  stages 
of  theology  as  a  whole,  of  which  Christian  theology 
is  but  the  culmination,  we  have  to  note  that  Christian 
theology  itself  exhibits  a  sufficiently  marked  process 
of  development.  Its  basis  consists  of  the  recorded 
utterances  of  Christ.  And  we  are  assured  on  excel- 
lent authority  that  these  recorded  utterances  consti- 
tute no  more  than  a  very  brief  series  of  typical  say- 
ings, collected  out  of  the  vastly  richer  whole  of  his 
actual  utterances.  And  doubtless  also  they  illustrate 
the  law  of  the  "survival  of  the  fittest." 

The  assertion,  indeed,  that,  if  all  he  said  and  did 
had  been  fully  recorded,  "the  world  itself  could  not 
contain  the  books  that  should  be  written,"  is  often 
cited  as  an  example  of  hyperbole.  And  if  the  asser- 
tion is  to  be  taken  literally,  or  "just  as  it  is," — that 


NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY.  309 

is,  in  its  most  superficial  meaning, — doubtless  it  can- 
not be  put  to  better  use  than  that  of  an  example  of 
extravagant  rhetorical  figure.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  hyperbole  vanishes, 
and  the  statement  is  "literally"  true,  though  with  a 
vastly  deeper  meaning.  It  is  this  :  the  statements  of 
Christ  contain  implicitly  the  whole  truth  as  regards 
the  divine  nature,  on  the  one  hand,  and  human 
nature,  on  the  other,  together  with  the  essential  re- 
lation of  these,  each  to  each.  And  to  set  forth  all 
this//^//)/  would  be  no  less  than  to  re-create  the  whole 
universe. 

But  the  universe  is  in  actual  and  perpetual  process 
of  recreation.  And  the  self-unfolding  of  each  indi- 
vidual conscious  unit  is  an  essential  factor  of  this 
process.  Let  us  repeat,  too,  that  such  unit  is  of  pre- 
cisely the  same  type  or  nature  as  that  of  the  divine 
unit,  or  Person.  One  ought,  besides,  to  dwell  upon 
this  identity  in  nature  as  between  man  and  God  so 
far  as  to  apprehend  clearly  what  is  implied  in  this 
identity. 

In  the  present  connection  this  implication  is  as  fol- 
lows :  If  my  nature  is  really  infinite,  then,  because  I 
have  as  yet  realized  that  nature  only  in  mere  rudi- 
mentary degree,  and  because  I  can  at  best  further 
realize  it  only  stage  by  stage  or  progressively,  then 
am  I  truly  an  individual  ;  that  is,  an  indivisible,  in- 
destructible unit.     For,  if  an  infinite  nature  is  really 


310  NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY. 

mine,  then  all  the  conditions  for  its  perfect  realization 
are  also  mine.  And  one  necessary  condition  for  the 
perfect  fulfilment  of  an  infinite  nature  on  my  part 
must  be  endless  persistence  as  one  and  the  same  unit. 
For  in  no  less  than  endless  duration  can  I,  a  finite 
being,  unfold  into  reality  an  infinite  ideal.  If  death, 
in  the  sense  of  utter  cessation  of  my  identity  as  a  con- 
scious unit,  could  occur,  then  my  nature  would  prove 
to  be  not  infinite,  but  finite. 

It  thus  appears  that  whoever  entertains  a  rational 
belief  in  immortality  for  the  individual  must  also  be- 
lieve in  the  individual's  unlimited  progress  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  as  revealed  or  realized  in  the 
physical  aspect  of  creation,  on  the  one  hand,  and  in 
its  spiritual  aspect  on  the  other.  And,  since  this  pro- 
gress in  the  knowledge  of  God  is  nothing  else  than  a 
progressive  clarifying  and  enlarging  of  man's  opinion 
respecting  God  as  manifested  or  revealed  in  both  nat- 
ural and  spiritual  phenomena,  then  "Orthodoxy,"  as 
human  opinion  upon  this  all-inclusive  theme,  must 
in  its  very  nature  be  progressive. 

Only  a  living,  growing  faith  is  really  orthodox.  It 
is  such  faith  that  is  ceaselessly,  progressively, 
"swallowed  up  in  sight."  It  is  such  faith  that  7iozv, 
to-day,  sees  through  a  glass  darkly;  but  which  will 
the7i,  to-morrow,  see  God  with  truer  vision  and,  rela- 
tively, face  to  face.  It  is  such  faith  that  goes  on 
unto  perfection  in  its  special,  particular  phases,  and 


NON-PROGRKSSIVK   ORTHODOXY.  311 

thus   ceaselessly  tozvard    perfection  in  its    ultimate, 
universal,  divine  fulness.^ 

The  antinomy  of  "Orthodoxy"  has  ever  been  this  : 
the  finitude  of  the  symbol,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
infinitude  of  the  symbolized  significance,  on  the 
other.  The  Bible  is  the  infinitely  significant — that 
is,  infinitely  suggestive — "Word  of  God."  Never- 
theless, we  are  to  take  the  words  of  the  Bible,  and, 
above  all,  the  few  recorded  words  of  Christ,  "just  as 
they.  are. ' ' 

And  strange  things,  indeed,  have  been  compassed 
in  the  attempt  to  follow  this  rule.  When  Jesus  said: 
"If  a  man  keep  my  word,  he  shall  never  see  death," 
the  people  who  heard  took  the  words  "just  as  they 
are,"  and  exclaimed  indignantly,  "Now  we  know 
that  thou  hast  a  devil."  When  Jesus  said:  'The 
bread  which  I  will  give  is  my  flesh,  for  the  life  of  the 
world,"  those  present  took  the  words  "just  as  they 
are,"  and  therefore  "strove  with  one  another,  say- 
ing, How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat?" 
And,  when  Jesus  repeated:  "Except  ye  eat  the  flesh 


4t  seems  hardly  necessary  to  mention  that  shallow  form 
of  "progressive  spirit"  which  indulges  itself  in  mere  change, 
in  the  mere  substitution  of  one  fancy  for  another,  and  com- 
placently regards  itself,  as  for  that  reason,  far  in  advance  of 
those  who  have  found  the  clew  to  fundamental  principles, 
and  are  content  to  develop  patiently  in  their  own  minds  a 
deeper  apprehension  of  all  that  those  principles  imply.  And 
yet,  now  and  then,  the  wildest  vagaries  of  a  Tolstoi  are 
claimed  to  prove  the  greatness  (instead  of  the  painful  weak- 
ness; of  such  a  mind. 


-312  NON-PROGRESSIVK   ORTHODOXY. 

of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  not 
life  in  yourselves,"  many,  even  of  his  disciples, 
taking  his  words,  "just  as  they  are, "grew  impatient, 
declared  it  to  be  a  '  'hard  saying"  which  no  sane  man 
could  tolerate,  and  hence  **went  back  and  walked  no 
more  with  him."  It  was  of  no  avail  that  Jesus  at- 
tempted to  show  them  the  higher  truth  to  which  he 
would  awaken  them  by  the  use  of  such  startling  sym- 
bolism. In  reality,  as  it  proved,  the  twelve  alone 
had  progressed  far  enough  to  see  beyond  the  mere 
ordinary  use  of  the  words,  and  hence  to  appre- 
hend, at  least  in  some  degree,  the  value  of  the  inter- 
pretation in  higher  terms  which  Jesus  immediately 
gave  of  his  first  statement. 

Even  to-day  there  is  persistent  insistance  that  these 
''^words''  shall  be  "taken  just  as  they  are."  And 
with  what  result  ?  What  but  this  ?  That  the  words, 
in  reality  so  significant,  so  full  of  suggestion,  are  re- 
duced to  and  accepted  as  a  mere  fetish,  on  the  one 
hand,  and,  on  the  other,  are  declared  to  belong  to 
fetishism  merely,  whence  they  are  scornfully  thrust 
aside  without  so  much  as  a  moment's  serious  exami- 
nation. The  reduction  of  "the  Word"  to  the  uses  of 
a  gross  magic  could  hardly  fail  to  find  its  antithesis 
in  a  mocking  skepticism.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand, 
-we  see  a  devout  "Christian"  opening  at  random  to  a 
text  for  guidance  in  case  of  doubt  (like  a  good  pagan 
casting  a  glance  into  the  sky  to  note  what  bird    flies 


NON-PROGRESSIVE    ORTHODOXY.  313 

by,  and  in  what  direction),  and  trusting  implicitly  to 
that  as  a  special  divine  intimation.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  now  and  then  see  some  one  just  sufficiently 
awakened  out  of  the  same  dogmatic  stupor  to  fly  to 
the  other  extreme,  and  in  wholly  unsuspecting  confi- 
dence that  he  at  least  comprehends  the  case  with  per- 
fect clearness,  assume  it  an  indispensable  and  also 
indubitable  mark  of  his  own  superior  intelligence  to 
look  upon  the  whole  collection  of  texts  as  nothing 
else  than  the  outgrowth  of  superstition,  unworthy  a 
moment's  notice  on  the  part  of  a  truly  wise  man. 

Such  in  character  is  the  contradiction  that  must 
continue  to  present  itself  in  practical  life  so  long  as 
the  antinomy  of  Flesh  and  Spirit,  of  symbolizing 
Word  and  symbolized  Significance,  fails  of  explicit 
reconciliation  in  theology.  And  Progressive  Ortho- 
doxy is  just  that  reconciliation.  It  is  the  recognition 
with  steadily  increasing  explicitness  that  the  Word  is 
ever  dual  in  meaning,  unless  it  be  quite  meaningless. 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  Z,<?^^5."  But  Z,^^^6  is  at 
once  intelligence  and  a  symbol  of  Intelligence. 
Looked  at  in  one  way,  it  is  the  divine  Reason,  or 
God.  Looked  at  in  another  way,  it  is  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  divine  Reason  in  the  total  and  infinitely 
varied  forms  of  Reality.  It  is  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  exclusively,  for  it  is  both  in  perfect  interfusion 
and  absolute  perfection.  The  divine  Reason  mani- 
fests itselfin  the  infinitely  varied  forms  and  modes  of 


314  NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY. 

Reality.     It  is  thus  that  the  Logos  becomes  flesh  and 
dwells  among  us. 

And,  because  "Orthodoxy"  has  tended  always 
towards  insistence  upon  some  one  set  of  forms  as  the 
sole,  exclusive  manifestation  or  revelation  of  divine 
Reason  to  man,  the  phrase,  "Progressive  Ortho- 
doxy," is  needed,  even  though  it  should  be  only  tem- 
porarily, to  emphasize  the  fact  that  special  forms  are 
in  their  very  nature  nothing  more  than  the  embodi- 
ment of  special  phases  of  the  Truth  ;  and  also  that> 
to  the  individual  intelligence,  even  the  significance 
of  these  special  forms  can  become  known  only  grad- 
ually, through  the  progressive  unfolding  of  that  indi- 
vidual's power  to  apprehend  the  Truth  and  apply  it 
in  his  own  life. 

The  schools  of  Christendom  in  general,  then,  and 
the  theological  schools  of  Christendom  in  particular, 
are  in  truth  nothing  else  than  the  media  for  the  pro- 
gressive awakening  of  men  to  a  clearer  consciousness 
of  the  infinitely  rich  truth  symbolized  in  the  original 
Christian  teachings,  and  progressively  unfolded  into 
ever-increasing  accuracy  and  adequacy  of  expression 
through  succeeding  centuries.  And  not  only  are  the 
schools  of  Christendom  the  media  for  leading  the 
minds  of  a  given  generation  to  a  clearer  apprehen- 
sion of  the  truth  already  discovered  ;  they  are,  of 
right,  equally  the  media  for  extending  and  deepening 
that  same  process  of  discovery — media,  that  is,  for  the 


NON-PROGRESSIVE   ORTHODOXY.  315 

fuller,  richer  interpretation  of  the  elementary  sym- 
bols to  which  Christ  gave  shape,  and  to  which  he 
gave  shape  no  less  for  the  stimulus  than  for  the 
guidance  of  human  intelligence.  Evidently,  then, 
to  apply  such  schools  to  the  enforcement  of  mere  dog- 
matic formulae  as  such  is  the  deadliest  of  perversions, 
the  transformation  of  Orthodoxy  into  the  most  ruinous 
of  heresies. 

It  is  a  dying  faith  that  wraps  itself  in  the  winding- 
sheet  of  mere  forms  and  emblems,  and  resents  all  ef- 
forts to  stimulate  it  into  increased  life  and  activity. 
And  whoever  insists  upon  an  Orthodoxy  from  which 
progress  is  excluded,  by  that  very  fact  convicts  him- 
self of  heresy  in  a  form  that  drives  out  all  real  ground 
of  hope  in  immortality.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  im- 
mortality can  really  mean  nothing  else  than  this  :  a 
never-ending  renewal,  enriching,  unfolding  of  the 
divine  Life  in  the  individual  soul.  And,  it  need 
hardly  be  added,  this  must  include  the  unceasing 
growth  of  intelligence  on  the  part  of  each  individual 
soul,  involving  continuous  revision  and  extension  of 
forms  of  expression ,  so  that  these  forms  may  be  ever 
adequate  to  the  actual  utterance  of  the  steadily  grow- 
ing mind.  , 

It  can  be  mentioned  here,  only  incidentally,  that 
in  such  revision  and  extension  of  forms  the  indi- 
vidual cannot  escape,  even  if  it  were  desirable  that 
he  should  escape,  the  corrective  and  stimulating  in- 


316  NON-PROGRKSSIVE    ORTHODOXY. 

fluence  of  other  minds.  Indeed,  the  school,  in  its 
best  sense,  is  the  ideal  community,  whose  chief  en- 
ergies are  combined  to  raise  this  corrective,  stimu- 
lating influence  of  mind  upon  mind  to  the  highest  de- 
gree of  actual  efficiency. 

In  the  foregoing  argument  there  is  implicit  the  fol- 
lowing important  corollary  ;  From  the  fact  that  im- 
mortality means  unending  progression  towards  abso- 
lute perfection,  the  conclusion  follows  inevitably  that 
for  the  individual  soul  * 'probation'* — that  is,  the 
possibility  of  error,  with  its  necessary  reciprocal,  the 
possibility  of  recovery  from  error — can  never  be 
wholly  ended,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  must  con- 
tinuously be  transferred  to  ever  more  advanced  grades 
of  the  soul's  life.  The  possibility  of  choosing  the 
"lower"  instead  of  the  "higher"'  can  never  be  elim- 
inated from  the  finite  mind.  On  the  other  hand, 
with  the  normally  advancing  soul,  any  phase  of  the 
lower,  which  at  any  moment  would  constitute  a  real 
"temptation,"  must  prove  to  be  of  a  less  and  less 
ignoble  character.  After  the  dissonance  of  actual 
self-contradiction  has  ceased  to  have  any  attraction, 
there  may  still  be  the  choice  of  a  less  rather  than  of  a 
more  richly  rhythmic  duty — as  if  one  were  to  content 
himself  with  a  life  of  mere  melody  when  he  reason- 
ably might  (and  therefore  ought  to)  add  to  his  ex- 
perience an  ever  fuller  range  of  harmony. 

Let  us  note,  finally,  that  not  only  is  the    "future' ' 


NON-PROGRESSIVE    ORTHODOXY.  317 

life  an  extension  essentially  of  the  present  life,  but, 
also,  that  the  future  life  is  not  really  life  until  it 
ceases  to  be  future  and  becomes  present.  Man  lives 
in  a  progressive  Now,  as  God  lives  in  the  ete^nial 
Now.  It  is  thus  and  thus  only  that  man  attains,  or  can 
attain,  to  ever  richer  degrees  of  the  I^ife  Divine. 


vn. 


MIRACLES. 


As  intelligence  my  nature  demands  that  I  shall 
know  the  world.  As  will  my  nature  demands  that  I 
shall  control  the  world.  As  feeling  my  nature  de- 
mands that  I  shall  enjoy  the  world.  But  the  "world" 
— what  is  it  ? 

That  is  my  question  ;  and  equally,  as  would  seem, 
the  answer  must  be  my  answer.  No  answer  coming 
from  without  can  satisfy  any  question  coming  up 
from  within.  A  question — every  question — pre- 
supposes alienation,  in  one  or  another  degree,  be- 
tween myself  and  the  world.  Were  I  wholly  at  one 
with  the  world,  there  could  be  for  me  absolutely  no 
question.  And  thus,  in  real  truth,  every  question  is 
itself  an  imperative  demand  of  my  whole  being  that  I 
shall  make  myself  at  one  with  the  world.  This,  too, 
I  must  accomplish  either  by  adjusting  the  world  to 
myself,  or  by  adjusting  myself  to  the  world. 

Ultimately,  then,  the  core  of  every  question  I  can 
ask  is  just  this  :  What  z^  the  world?  For,  what  the 
world  is  that,  in  the  outcome,  must  I  also  be.  Some- 
how the  world  and  I  must  be  at  one.     The   question 


MIRACIvES.  319 

is  my  question  and  the  answer  must  be  my  answer. 
The  answer  will  not  come  to  me  of  itself,  and,  as  I 
find  at  every  turn,  the  world  will  not  come  to  me 
with  the  answer.  Rather  must  I  take  the  initiative, 
go  to  the  world,  fuse  myself  with  the  world,  the 
world  with  myself.  Thus  and  thus  only  can  I  hope 
to  attain  true  and  sufficient  answer  to  my  question. 

Fuse  myself  with  the  world — that  does  not  mean 
that  I  shall  stand  outside  the  world  as  a  mere  looker- 
on,  and  so  get  my  answer.  Far  enough  from  that  ! 
Moreover,  as  intelligence  merely  I  cannot  hope  for 
such  true  answer  as  my  whole  nature  compels  me  to 
seek.  I  must  wield  the  world  to  know  the  world; 
and  to  wield  it  I  must  will  it. 

Doubtless  the  world  comes  to  me  with  stimuli, 
myriad-fold  in  number,  variety,  and  quality.  But 
these  stimuli  serve  only  to  excite  my  curiosity,  only 
to  awaken  the  questioning  mood  within  me — never  to 
answer  my  questions.  My  answer  must  consist 
simply  in  my  own  interpretation  of  these  stimuli. 

But  also  when  I  attempt  to  will,  or  wield,  the 
world  it  refuses  to  be  willed  or  wielded.  I  put  forth 
my  Energy  as  will  that  I  may  shape  the  world  and 
fuse  it  with  my  will.  Could  I  succeed  in  that  then 
the  answer  to  my  question  would  be  this  :  The  world 
is  but  the  expression  of  my  will,  of  myself.  In  going 
to  the  world  I  have  come  to  myself,  then.  And  there 
is  doubtless  a  glimmer  of  truth  in  that. 


320  MIRACLES. 

Yet  not  so  simple  is  the  answer  !  I  do  ?ioi  succeed; 
or,  at  most,  my  success  is  only  superficial  and  even 
illusory.  The  world  ou^  there  resists  my  efforts  to 
fuse  it  with  myself.  Resists?  Why,  then,  I  have 
already  found  answer.  The  world  is  resistance  And 
further,  through  experiment  I  find  that  the  world 
yields,  or  seems  to  yield,  more  to  my  will  when  I  ex- 
ert my  will  in  special  ways.  And  the  more  I  experi- 
ment the  more  I  discover  that  there  is  absolute  uni- 
formity in  the  resistances  and  yieldings  of  the  world  to 
my  will.  Examining  the  processes  unfolding  in  my 
own  mind,  processes  consisting  of  my  own  efforts  to 
wield  the  world,  I  discover  that  when  those  processes 
are  most  "intelligent"  the  world  ''yields"  most 
readily  and  most  completely  to  my  will  ;  and  when 
least  intelligent  its  resistance  is  most  stubborn. 

And  so  the  world  as  resistance  to  my  will  is  ener- 
gy, as  I  am  energy  ;  and  as  compelling  intelligent  or 
sj'Stematic  action  on  my  part  before  it  will  "yield"  or 
prove  responsive  to  my  activity  it  proves  to  be  an  en- 
ergy whose  activities  are  uniform,  regulated — an  en- 
ergy, in  fact,  which  can  be  comprehended  only  as  a 
concretely  unfolded  system.  Nor  can  I  discover  any 
phase  of  this  system  that  appears  defective.  Rather, 
the  more  I  experiment  upon  it  and  examine  into  it 
the  more  am  I  impressed  with  its  greatness  and  per- 
fection as  a  system. 

Attempting  to  adapt  the  world  to  my  will  I  find  the 


MIRACLES.  321 

world  resisting  my  effort.  Thus  my  intelligence  is 
stimulated  to  the  point  of  devising  new  modes  of  ex- 
erting my  energy  as  will.  And  when  I  have  devised 
such  modes  as  make  me  the  seeming  master  of  the 
world,  I  discover  that  I  have  reduced  m}^ activities  to 
a  system  which  but  reproduces  thus  far  the  S3^stem  of 
the  World  as  Energy.  I  dreamed  of  mastering  the 
world— -of  making  it  one  with  myself.  I  have  really 
been  mastering  myself  by  making  myself  one  with 
the  world. 

And  the  further  I  advance  in  this  experimentation 
the  more  evident  becomes  to  me  the  fact  that  the 
world  as  Energy  is  absolutely  universal  ;  it  is  all- 
inclusive  ;  it  is  literally  the  Universe — the  All  turned 
into  Oyie.  Thus  it  proves  to  be  universal  Energy 
constituting  a  concretely  unfolded  and  all-inclusive 
System — a  System,  therefore,  which  cannot  be  moved 
from  without,  but  can  be  moved  only  from  within. 
It  is  of  necessity  self-moved,  self-active,  and  hence 
self-regulating.  But  a  self-active,  self-regulating 
Energy  cannot  be  conceived  save  as  conscious  of  its 
own  activity  and  of  the  System  or  method  of  its  ac- 
tivity. And  a  self-conscious  unit  of  Energ}^  can  be 
conceived  no  otherwise  than  as  Mi7id. 

Observation  and  experiment,  then,  force  me  to  this 
conclusion  :  The  world  is  resistance  ;  the  world  is 
energy  ;  the  world  is  self- regulating  Energy  ;  the 
world  is  Mind.     As  the  one  all-inclusive  System,  it 


322  MIRACLES. 

is  infinite,  self-unfolding  Mind.  It  is  infinitely  active 
and  hence  infinitely  productive.  Looked  at  as  a  Sys- 
tem, its  activity  appears  as  an  absolute  process  of 
Evolution.  Looked  at  as  Mind  its  activity  appears 
as  a  process  of  absolute  self-realization.  Looked  at 
as  the  all-inclusive,  infinitely  live,  self  conscious  One, 
its  activity  appears  as  the  self-manifestation  of  the 
one  eternally  perfect  Person. 

And  so  I  attain  a  glimpse  of  "the  high  and  lofty 
One  who  inhabiteth  Eternity,"  who  is  "without 
variableness  or  shadow  of  turning,"  and  with  whom 
therefore  ''a.  thousand  years  are  as  one  day  and  one 
day  as  a  thousand  years."  And  this  brings  me  to 
notice  that  the  infinite  creative  process,  consisting  of 
the  self-manifestation  of  the  eternally  perfect  Person 
cannot  but  be  perfectly  regulated  in  every  phase  and 
degree  throughout  its  whole  extent.  It  is  nothing 
less  than  the  perfect  reign  of  perfect  Law.  It  is  the 
perfect  Law  of  the  absolute,  inherent  necessity  of  self- 
consistency  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  perfect 
Jreedom  on  the  part  of  perfect  mind. 

But  I  too  am  mind.  Nor  can  I  conceive  of  more 
than  one  type  of  mind  As  mind,  then,  I  am  already 
one  in  type  with  the  perfect  Mind.  Were  I  as  mind 
less  than  perfect  in  type,  I  could  never  know  myself 
as  being  imperfect  in  realization.  Were  not  I  as 
mind  infinite  in  nature,  I  could  never  know  myself 
as  finite    in  attainment.       A  finite  being  can    never 


MIRACIvES.  323 

know  itself  as  finite.  lyimit — finitude — exists  only  for 
that  being  which  sees  beyond  the  limit,  beyond 
finitude. 

The  world  is  Mind.  I  am  mind.  Potentially, 
ideally,  therefore,  I  am  already  one  with  the  world. 
That,  in  truth,  is  the  reason  why  every  question  I 
ask  presupposes  practical  alienation  between  myself 
and  the  world  ;  for  otherwise  no  questipn  could  arise 
as  a  mode  of  my  consciousness.  And  so  also  I  find 
in  this  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that  every  question 
I  ask  is  in  truth  an  absolute  demand  of  my  whole 
being  that  I  shall  make  myself  at  one  with  the  world. 
And,  as  I  now  recognize,  this  reconciliation  of  myself 
with  the  world  can  come  about  not  by  adjusting  the 
world  to  myself  but  by  adjusting  myself  to  the  world. 
I  can  know  the  world  only  by  thinking  the  thought 
of  the  world.  I  can  control  the  world  only  by  willing 
the  Will  of  the  World.  I  can  enjoy  the  world  only 
as  feeling — only  as  reproducing  in  myself — the  actual 
rhythm  of  the  world. 

II. 

In  such  world  what  can  be  the  real  meaning  of  the 
word  "miracle  ?" 

Words,  as  I  have  come  to  notice,  are  just  the  outer 
aspects  of  ideas.  My  present  question,  then,  is  this  : 
What,  exactly,  is  the  idea  which  has  assumed  or- 
ganic  form  in  the  word  "Miracle?"       In    its   rudi- 


324  MIRACLES. 

mentary  form,  indeed,  the  answer  to  this  question  is 
already  a  simple  and  familiar  one.  The  word  "mir- 
acle" expresses  the  idea  of  something  exciting  won- 
der. But  also  I  discover  that  to  many  minds  it  has 
come  to  mean  :  "That  which  is  out  of  the  ordinary 
course  of  things,  and  even  that  which  contradicts  the 
ordinary  course  of  things."  In  which  case  a  miracle 
is  nothing  le.ss  than  a  positive  interruption  of  the 
great  World  process  itself.  It  is  a  "suspension  of 
the  laws  of.  Nature,"  brought  about  by  the  divine 
Author  of  Nature  who  condescends  to  give  to  man 
such  transcendent  proof  that  mind  alone  is  essential 
and  that  thus  nature  itself  is  only  incidental,  both  in 
use  and  in  significance. 

A  wonder  indeed  were  such  things  actually  to  be  ! 
And  so  long  as  I  "think"  only  in  images  ;  so  long, 
that  is,  as  imagination  takes  precedence  of  critical  in- 
vestigation in  my  consciousness,  there  appears  no 
contradiction  in  such  assumption.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  I  subordinate  imagination  to  reflection 
and  really  think  what  is  involved  in  such  assump- 
tion, the  case  appears  radically  different.  For  I  find 
it  quite  impossible  to  represent  the  great  World- 
process  in  forms  of  the  thinking  consciousness  other- 
wise than  as  absolutely  continuous  in  its  perfect 
wholeness  and  self-consistency  ;  impossible  delib- 
erately to  entertain  as  rational  the  assumption  that 
the  divine  Author  of  the  world  should  suspend  either 


MIRACLES.  325 

the  laws  of  nature  or  any  other  aspect  of  the  great 
World-process  in  which  his  own  eternally  perfect,  and 
hence  unchanging,  inner  Life  is  ceaselessly  expressed. 
To  say  that  the  miracle  is  out  there  in  the  form  of  an 
interruption  of  the  great  world-order — that  attracts 
my  imagination,  but  repels  my  reason.  I  may  di^eam 
it  ;  I  can  never  t/mik  i  .  When  reason  awakes,  the 
dream  of  imagination,  so  far  as  it  conflicts  with 
reason,  cannot  but  fade  away. 

Nevertheless  the  miracle  exists.  I  can  no  more 
deny  that  than  I  can  accept  as  true  the  statement  that 
its  existence  takes  the  form  of  an  actual  interruption 
of  the  perfect  and  absolutely  changeless  process 
which  constitutes  the  outer  aspect  of  the  self- 
unfolding  of  the  one  eternally  self-equal  Mind.  And 
so  I  am  driven  to  search  within  my  own  imperfectly 
unfolded  and  slowly  unfolding  mind  ;  it  must  be 
there  that  I  shall  be  able  to  locate  the  miracle  and  to 
find  its  right  explanation.  Indeed  it  now  occurs  to 
me  again  that,  in  strict  truth,  the  essence  of  the 
miracle  is  wonder ;  and  I  can  conceive  wonder  as  ex- 
isting only  in  just  such  imperfectly  developed  mind 
as  mine. 

For  wonder  is  only  a  more  developed  form  of  sur- 
prise ;  and  surprise  again  is  an  uneasy  state  of  con- 
sciousness, to  which  I  am  more  or  less  rudely 
awakened  by  some  unexpected  stimulus  or  shock 
seemingly  coming  from  without.      In  reality    it    con- 


326  '  MIRACLES. 

sists  partly  of  the  sudden  awareness  that  the  world  is 
not  as  I  had  hitherto  assumed  it  to  be  ;  partly  of  the 
fear  lest  now  it  may  prove  to  be  what  I  would  wish  it 
not  to  be  ;  and  partly,  in  such  case,  of  the  determi- 
nation— blind  in  itself — to  bring  it  back  to  full  agree- 
ment with  my  own  inadequate  preconception  of  its 
true  nature. 

The  relation  between  myself  and  the  world  has 
changed.  And  if  the  relation  has  changed  one  of  the 
related  terms  must  have  changed.  The  change, 
seemingly  sudden,  altogether  unexpected,  has  ex- 
cited my  surprise,  and  surprise  has  grown  into  won- 
der. At  first  I  assume  without  question  that  the 
change  is  there,  in  the  world  beyond  me  It  is  that 
seeming  fact  which  excites  my  wonder.  It  is  that 
which  constitutes  the  miracle.  And,  now  that  I  re- 
flect upon  it,  this  is  itself  a  wonder.  For,  if  it  were  in 
the  nature  of  the  world  to  change,  such  change  could 
in  no  way  be  the  occasion  of  surprise,  of  wonder,  on  my 
part.  And  so  I  am  led  to  reflect  again  that  in  truth  the 
deepest  presupposition  of  my  own  nature  is  that  the 
world  in  its  inmost  nature  is  unchanging.  Nay,  I 
also  feel  that  somehow  I  too  am  unchanging.  The 
world  and  I  are  the  two  terms  of  a  relation.  The  re- 
lation changes  ;  yet  neither  of  the  terms  is  changeable. 
And  this  is  a  greater  wonder  still. 

But  also  I  have  already  seen  that  in  type,  in  kind, 
I  as  mind  am  one  with  the    perfect   Mind  ;  for   only 


MIRACLES.  327 

one  type  of  mind  is  at  all  conceivable,  viz.,  in  the 
sense  of  being  really  tJiinkable.  On  the  other  hand, 
while  the  perfect  Mind  is  wholly  and  eternally  self- 
realized  I  as  mind  am  so  imperfectly  realized  as 
scarcely  to  apprehend  myself  as  progressively  under- 
going self-realization.  Feeling  myself  to  be  unchang- 
ing in  type,  I  fail  to  recognize  myself  as  changing  in 
degree  of  fulfilment  of  that  type  on  my  own  part. 
Perhaps  that  is  the  real  reason  why  I  assume  that  the 
change  must  be  in  the  world  and  not  in  me.  But  also 
feeling  (however  dimly),  that  the  world  must  be  un- 
changing in  its  nature,  I  am  surprised  at  the  seem- 
ing fact  of  change  in  the  world,  and  so  I  declare 
such  seeming  change  "miraculous. ' '  And  yet  sooner 
or  later  I  am  compelled  to  recognize  that  my  precon- 
ception of  the  relation  between  myself  and  the  world 
is  full  of  error.  I  learn  of  the  universal  laws,  as  ex- 
pressing the  unchanging  nature,  of  the  great  World- 
process.  In  doing  so  I  come  to  recognize  those  laws 
as  modes  of  the  thought  of  the  perfect  Mind.  By  as 
much  as  I  comprehend  them  I  develop  them  in  my 
own  consciousness,  and  thus  prove  them  to  be  modes 
of  the  thought  native  to  myself  as  mind.  Thus  I 
adjust  my  thought  to  the  thought  of  the  perfect  Mind. 
Or  rather,  responding  to  the  stimulus  I  receive 
through  contact  with  the  great  World-process,  I  de- 
velop my  own  thought  ;  and  in  so  doing  discover  my 
thought  to  be  in  essence  one  with  the  thought  of   the 


328  MIRACLES. 

perfect  Mind.  Considering  which,  I  cannot  but 
wonder  and  say  to  myself  :  This  is  the  first  miracle  of 
mind. 

Following  such  clew  I  adjust  my  will  to  the  Will 
of  the  perfect  Mind.  Or  rather,  responding  to  the 
stimulus  I  receive  through  contact  with  the  great 
World-process,  I  develop  my  own  will  ;  and  in  so 
doing  discover  my  will  to  be  in  essence  one  with  the 
will  of  the  perfect  Mind.  Considering  which  I  am 
again  brought  to  wonder,  and  say  to  myself  :  This  is 
the  second  miracle  of  mind. 

And  again,  in  my  self-adjustment  to  the  thought 
and  to  the  will  of  the  perfect  Mind,  I  find  myself 
unfolding  within  m3'self  as  mind  a  boundless  sense  of 
unison,  of  rh^^thm,  the  perfect  degree  of  which  I  can- 
not but  recognize  as  absolutely  and  forever  realized 
in  and  for  the  perfect  Mind.  So  that  in  this  way 
also  r  cannot  but  see  that  my  mind  is  in  essence  one 
with  the  perfect  Mind  Considering  which,  I  am 
still  further  brought  to  wonder,  and  to  say  to  myself : 
This  is  the  third  miracle  of  Mind.  And  yet,  clearly, 
these  three  miracles  are  but  mutually  complementary 
aspects  of  one  and  the  same  inward  change. 

The  seeming  miracle  of  change  in  a  world  essen- 
tially changeless  is  found  to  have  its  truth  in  the  real 
miracle  of  change  within  myself  as  a  mind  ;  and  such 
real  miracle  is  possible  only  because  I  am  at  once 
perfect  and  hence  changeless  in  type,  and  alsoimper- 


MIRACLES.  329 

feet  and  hence  changeable  in  respect  of  the  degree  of 
my  own  self-realization  in  accordance  with  that  type. 

The  relation  between  the  world  and  myself  changes. 
The  world  does  not  change.  It  is  I  that  change. 
Striving  to  make  the  world  one  with  myself  I  succeed 
only  in  making  myself  one  with  the  world.  The 
world  is  perfect.  It  is  the  expression  of  the  perfect 
Mind.  I  can  know  the  world  only  by  thinking  the 
thought  of  the  world.  I  can  control  the  world  only 
by  willing  the  Will  of  the  World.  I  can  enjoy  the 
world  only  as  I  reproduce  in  myself  the  actual  eternal 
rhythm  of  the  world.  I  can  l?e  at  all  only  as  I  make 
myself  one  with  the  world  of  infinite  Reality. 

The  miracle  is  not  external  ;  it  is  internal.  It  is 
not  beyond  me  ;  it  is  within  me.  When  first  awakened 
to  the  error  of  my  presupposition  as  to  the  world  and 
my  relation  to  the  world,  I  was  startled,  surprised, 
alarmed,  resentful.  As  I  come  to  comprehend  with 
increasing  clearness  and  precision  and  adequacy  the 
world  and  myself  and  the  true  relation  between  my- 
self and  the  world,  surprise  blossoms  into  wonder,  and 
wonder  grows  into  love,  and  love  ripens  into  ador- 
ation. For  through  patient,  careful  investigation  I 
discover  that  the  true  miracle  consists  in  the  actual 
self-unfolding  of  the  individual  mind  into  ever  greater 
degrees  of  realized  likeness  wiih  the  perfect  Mind.' 


'And  doubtless  here  is  the  clew  to  the  real  truth  involved 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  "Emanation"  of  the  human  soul   from 


330  MIRACLES. 

And  this  is  actually  brought  about  through  willing 
response  of  the  individual  mind  to  the  infinitely  mani- 
fold stimulation  forever  brought  to  bear  upon  it  by 
the  perfect  Mind  through  its  own  faultlessly  self- 
consistent  self  activity. 

III. 

And  yet  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
great  and  unquestionable  historical  miracles  have  ac- 
tually been  wrought.  What  can  we  say  of  them  ? 
For  answer,  let  us  examine  three  typical  instances. 

1.  First  of  all,  for  our  present  purpose,  there  is  that 
great  national  miracle  of  which  Joan  of  Arc  is  the 
personal  focus.  How  are  we  to  understand  that? 
France  is  in  political  death-agony.  No  one  thinks  or 
speaks  of  aught  else  than  the  national  peril  and  the 
cruel,  brutal  foe.  In  the  peasant's  hut  as  well  as  in 
the  palace,  fear  grips  the  heart  of  old  and  young 
alike.  But  there  is  one  heart  in  France  that  feels  the 
pulsings  of  the  Eternal  Heart.     A  shepherd  girl  has 


God  and  of  its  ''reabsorption"  in  God.  "Emanate"  from  God 
it  no  doubt  does  ;  but  by  a  perfectly  rational  and  hence  in  the 
outcome  perfectly  comprehensible  process.  On  the  other 
hand,  its  "reabsorption"  can  properly  mean  no  more  than 
the  progressive  self-unfolding  into  reality  on  its  part  of  the 
primal  divine  likeness — of  its  inherent  typical  nature  as 
mind  which  at  first,  for  it,  is  no  more  than  a  potentiality, 
though  ii  be  truly  an  infinite  potentiaHty.  It  is  the  process 
of  "identification"  of  the  individual  soul  with  the  eternal 
Mind,  but  in  such  way  as  to  ceaselessly  intensify,  instead  of 
cancelling,  its  individuality. 


miraci.es.  3M 

heard,  and  hearing  has  believed,  that  God  is  good 
and  trne  and  infinitely  able  to  save  his  worshipers 
from  wrong.  And  God  is  unchanging.  To  her  there 
can  be  no  interruption  of  the  great  world-order.  The 
King  and  France  have  forgotten.  If  only  the  King 
and  France  could  be  aw^akened  from  this  dream  of 
fear  they  too  would  know,  and  knowing  would  take 
courage  and  sweep  the  enemies  of  the  true  wor- 
shipers of  God  completelj^  from  the  land. 

No  shadow  of  question  clouds  this  infinitely  clear 
vision.  If  onl}'  the  awakening  would  come  !  It  wt'll 
come,  but  w/ien  will  it  come  ?  She  watches  her 
flock,  keeping  it  from  the  wolves  of  the  wood.  God 
watches  His  flock,  keeping  it  from  the  wolves  of  the 
world.  Yet  the  wolves  are  savage  and  threatening. 
When  will  King  and  people  awake — when  will  the 
flock  of  the  divine  pasture  seek  the  one  true  shelter? 

Day  after  day  passes.  The  danger  deepens.  Can 
it  be?  God  whispers  in  her  soul  a  startling  message. 
''Voii  are  my  under-shepherd.  Of  all  the  souls  in 
France  you  alone  have  felt  the  real  pulsings  of  the 
Heart  of  Truth.  Go  to  the  King  ;  go  to  the  people  ; 
wake  them  out  of  their  sleep  of  fear  ;  bring  them  to 
know  again  that  God  is  unchanging  and  that  they 
who  trust  in  his  unchanging  nature  are  invincible. " 

Poor,  quivering,  fateful  maiden  soul  !  It  has  been 
caught  in  the  flame  of  divinely  transcendent  duty, 
and  in  that  flame  its  earthly  life  must  be  consumed. 


33Z  MIRACLES. 

What  will  father  think?  What  will  mother  .say? 
Will  the  neighbors  mock?  Will  the  priest  believe? 
Whatever  else  betide  she  must  obey  the  divine  com- 
mand and  save  the  flock  of  God's  pasture  from  being 
devoured  by  the  savage  wolves. 

Nor  had  the  science  of  the  fifteenth  centur}^  a  word 
to  say  that  could  tend  toward  the  dissipation  of  such 
vision.  Rather  the  habit  of  mind  of  that  time  was 
such  as  tended  to  the  ready  acceptance  and  wholly 
literal  interpretation  of  the  message.  The  only  doubt 
is  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  vision  in  this  particu- 
lar case  ;  not  as  to  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  vision 
in  itself.  To-day,  with  our  habits  of  reflection  and 
critical  psychological  analysis,  the  claim  to  having 
experienced  such  visiori  and  received  such  message, 
would  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  hallucination  ;  and 
if  the  individual  persisted  in  the  claim  we  could  only 
feel  bound,  sorrowfully,  gently,  but  firmly  to  consign 
the  claimant  to  a  secure  place  in  the  asylum  for  the 
insane. 

On  the  contrary  the  uncritical  habit  of  mind  of  that 
day  made  the  acceptance  of  the  vision  a  logical  nects- 
sity,  and  the  map  of  Europe  was  shaped  accordingly. 
And  as  for  the  tragic  soul  of  the  shepherd  maiden, 
her  inner  life  became  a  consuming  flame  ;  so  that  her 
life  was  the  immediate  form  of  the  light  of  the  world, 
guided  by  which  France  was  redeemed  from  national 
ruin  ;  while  her  outward  life  was  already    consumed 


MIRACLES.  333 

in  the  great  deed  of  her  inspired  heroism.  And  the 
flame  of  the  otherwise  impotent  rage  of  the  English 
Fenris  Wolf  but  made  this  fact  apparent  to  all  the 
world. 

A  miracle  truly  !  And  we  must  now  add  that  an 
age  of  crude,  uncritical  faith  is  just  the  indispensable 
pre-condition  of  every  such  miracle.  And  further, 
the  instinctively  assumed,  wholly  unanalyzed  under- 
lying principle  in  every  such  case,  is  that  of  the  ab- 
solute changelessness  and  trustworthiness  of  the  es- 
sential, divine  World  order.  Men  may  change,  but 
God  is  in  deepest  truth  "without  variableness  or 
shadow  of  turning."  In  short,  the  miracle  of  which 
the  Maid  of  Orleans  is  the  focal  personage,  is  not 
only  a  real  miracle  ;  it  is  also  wholly  to  be  explained 
upon  psychological  grounds.  And  precisely  upon 
these  grounds  it  is  self-evident  that  the  more  highly 
civilized,  the  more  thoroughly  Enlightened,  the 
world  becomes,  the  more  manifestly  impossible  must 
the  recurrence  of  such  miracle  prove  to  be.  Instead 
of  these  we  now  have  the  telegraph,  and  the  d5^namite 
gun,  and  the  electric  engine,  and  the  printing-press 
with  its  search-light  corollary,  the  newspaper,  all  ex- 
pressions and  instrumental  forms  of  the  progressive 
miracle  of  history  which  consists  in  the  self-unfolding 
of  the  human  mind  through  its  subjugation  of  brute 
force  to  right  reason  on  the  one  hand,  and  through  its 


334  MIRACLES. 

own  self-adaptation  to  the  modes  of  the  eternally  per- 
fect Mind  on  the  other. 

2.  But  we  have  now  to  consider  other  typical  forms 
of  what  we  may  call  the  miracles  of  faith — miracles 
of  which  we  haye  the  most  circumstantial  account  in 
a  book  which  has  for  ceuturie  .  been  held  in  such 
reverence  by  the  Christian  world  that  any  attempt  at 
interpretation  of  its  contents  through  critical  analysis 
is  still  sure  to  be  met  with  more  or  less  vehement 
protest.  The  book  is  a  revelation — the  Revelation  to 
man  of  God's  purpose  in  the  world  and  of  God's  will 
as  toward  the  members  of  the  human  race.  The 
very  earnestness  with  which  this  is  insisted  upon 
often  causes  the  fact  to  be  wholly  overlooked  that  a 
revelation,  as  elsewhere  urged  in  this  volume/  can 
really  be  such  only  so  far  as  it  is  understood  or  com- 
prehended. So  that  in  reality  the  subjective  aspect 
of  any  possible  revelation — that  is,  its  more  or  less  in- 
telligent acceptance — is  the  necessary  reciprocal  of 
the  objective  aspect — that  is,  of  its  occurrence  at  all  as 
revelation.  No  doubt,  as  the  expression  of  the  per- 
fect Mind,  the  great  world-process  is  an  infinite, 
eternal  self-revelation.  That  is,  the  perfect  Mind 
cannot  but  perfectly  comprehend  its  own  perfect  ex- 
pression. And  even  so  the  subjective  and  the  objec- 
tive aspects  cannot  but  sustain  to  one  another  the  re- 


^Cf.  above,  p.  124  fol.,  dnd  variously  elsewhere.    Also   my 
World -Energy  and  its  Self-Conservatio7i,  p    229  fol. 


MIRACLES.  335 

lation  of  absolute  reciprocals.  Whence  I  cannot  do 
otherwise  than  conclude  that  the  total  world-process 
can  really  be  a  revelation  to  me  only  in  so  far  as  I  re- 
produce in  my  own  mind  the  modes  of  consciousness 
which  that  process  expresses. 

Besides,  if  that  process  really  constitutes  the  per- 
fect expression  of  the  perfect  Mind,  then  it  must  be 
infinite  in  extent  and  in  complexity,  and  hence  I 
cannot  possibly  attain  full,  exhaustive  knowledge  of 
it  in  less  than  infinite  duration.  And  further,  after 
freely  admitting  that  the  Bible  is  the  great  central 
Book  of  the  world  in  point  of  real  ethical  and  religious 
import,  the  fact  cannot  be  put  aside  that  it  bears  un- 
mistakable marks  of  race-peculiarities,  and  that  it  is 
limited  to  the  symbolism  of  a  special  phase  and  grade 
of  civilization.  Taken  in  its  external  form,  there- 
fore, it  is  the  expression  of  the  imperfect  thought  of 
what  in  this  particular  world  of  ours  may  very  well 
be  symbolized  as  the  slowly  developing  Son,  rather 
than  described  as  the  full  expression  of  the  perfect 
Thought  of  the  eternally  developed  Father.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  that  precisely  in  this  Book  the  Son  first 
appears  as  clearly  knowing  himself  as  Son  ;  and  so, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  this  world,  as  artic- 
ulately and  joyously  calling  God  by  the  love-warm 
name  of  Father.^ 


^See  below,  close  of  essay,  for    further   intimation  of  the 
significance  of  the  divine  Sonship. 


336  MIRACIvES. 

In  fact,  it  is  just  this  iufiuitely  vital  relationship  as 
between  the  individual  human  soul  and  the  absolute, 
divine,  eternal  Spirit,  symbolized  in  the  reciprocal 
terms  :  Son  and  Father,  which  constitutes  the  inmost 
secret  of  the  Bible  and  makes  of  it  the  one  gravita- 
tive,  luminous,  thermal,  magnetic  centre  of  all  the 
finest  literary  constellations  of  the  world.  Its  aim  is 
neither  to  excite  nor  to  satisfy  our  interest  in  death- 
involved  matter  ;  but  to  awaken  us  to  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  ultimate  worth  of  life-evolving  Mind  Its 
writers — at  least  those  of  the  later  period — have  no 
care  for  the  external  and  vanishing,  but  only  for  the 
internal  and  abiding.  They  are  not  concerned  wi.th 
the  perishing  body  of  man,  but  only  with  man  as  a 
growing,  expanding,  imperisliable  soul.^ 

Now  it  is  precisely  to  the  life  of  the  soul  as  outwardly 
expressed  in  the  body  that  the  most  vitally  signifi- 
cant of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible  refer.  Of 
these,  two  stand  out  as  having  transcendent  interest, 
and  are  specially  adapted  to  our  present  purpose. 
They  are  :  the  raising  of  Lazarus  and  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ.  The  former  represents  the  power  of 
the  Christ  in  renewing  the  lives  of  others.  The  latter 
demonstrates  the  power  of  the  Son  to  subordinate 
death  to  life,  first  in  his  own  person,  and  afterward  in 
the  life  of  the  race. 


^This  reservation  must  of  course  be  made  :  that  the  early 
Hebrews  appear  to  have  had  no  definite  doctrine  of  or  posi- 
tive belief  in  a  life  after  death. 


MIRACIvES.  337 

In  dealing  with  these  we  are  first  to  again  remind 
ourselves  of  the  general  oriental  character  of  the  sym- 
bolism of  the  Bible  ;  of  the  race-quality  marking  its 
specific  thought  ;  and  of  the  highly  poetic  but  wholly 
uncritical  habit  of  mind  constituting  the  definite  and 
very  positive  limitation  not  onl}'-  of  the  writers  to 
whom  the  record  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  is  due, 
but  of  the  entire  race  of  which  those  minds  were  spe- 
cially \vorthy  representatives.  In  the  second  place 
we  are  again  to  recall  the  fact  that  in  strict  truth  it  is 
simply  impossible  to  conceive,  in  the  sense  of  really 
thinking,  any  change  in  the  great  World-order, 
whether  in  the  form  of  the  suspension  of  the  laws  of 
nature  or  in  the  reversal  of  the  laws  of  mind.  If  in 
the  great  struggle  for  possession  of  the  promised  land 
of  truth,  I  reach  betimes  a  turning  point  at  which  the 
threatening  twilight  of  despair  is  suddenly  replaced 
by  the  noonday  sun  of  confidence,  I  may  seem  in- 
deed to  myself  to  have  won  the  special  favor  of  the 
Ruler  of  the  world,  who  has  thus  been  brought  to 
stay  the  universal  course  of  things  that  I  might, 
without  interruption,  bring  my  battle  to  perfectly 
successful  issue.  Yet  when  I  review  the  case  with 
care  and  reflect  upon  its  real  ■motfv'e,  I  cannot  but 
see  that  such  seeming  suspension  of  the  universal 
World-process  for  the  sake  of  insuring  unbroken  con- 
tinuity in  the  fulfilment  of  my  individual  plans,  can- 
not  be    regarded  as  actually  taking  place.     On  the 


338  MIRACI.ES. 

contrary,  I  am  driven  to  recognize  that  the  only 
really  thinkable  explanation  I  can  find  for  such 
seeming  contradiction  is  this  :  That  the  inner  process 
of  m}^  mind  has  been  of  such  nature  that  with  the  ac- 
tual solution  of  the  given  problem  the  sense  of  relief 
and  triumph,  has  been  so  vivid,  so  intense,  that  the 
sudden  inner  illumination  could  not  but  project  itself 
into  the  form  of  an  external  miracle  consisting  in  the 
actual  prolongation  and  positive  brightening  of  the 
outer  day.  A  miracle  has  actually  occurred,  but  it 
has  taken  place  within  my  own  mind,  and  it  is  only 
by  a  sort  of  divine  illusion  that  this  inner  transfor- 
mation has  appeared  as  taking  place  in  the  form  of  a 
suspension  of  the  workings  of  the  actual  outer  world 
of  Nature.  In  short,  I  am  driven  to  conclude  that 
the  miracle  is  essentially  psychical  and  only  in  ap- 
pearance physical.  The  further  I  examine  into  the 
matter  the  clearer  it  becomes  to  me  that  the  outer 
world  of  nature  is  the  realm  of  absolutel}^  unvarying 
law,  of  unequivocal  necessity,  while  in  mind  alone 
there  is  manifest  the  infinitely  more  complex  law  of 
self-activity,  of  literally  free  self-definition.  And 
where  mind  as  individual  is  imperfect  in  attainment 
and  hence  is  limited  to  cumulative  self-development 
through  time,  there  and  there  alone  can  there  be 
transition  from  one  to  another  state  of  consciousness, 
there  and  there  alone  can  there  be  possibilit}'  of  the 
appearance  of  change  in  the  great  World-order. 


MIRACLES.  339 

And  yet,  being  mind,  the  individual  may  be  said 
to  be  by  his  own  inmost  nature  predestined  to  attain 
at  length  to  such  degree  of  critical,  reflective  con- 
sciousness as  to  recognize  that  the  absolute  self-con- 
sistency and  self-sufficiency  of  the  perfect  Mind  can- 
not but  necessitate  the  absolute  changelessness  of  the 
actual  World-order,  since  the  latter  is  nothing  else 
than  the  spontaneously  produced  expression  of  that 
Mind.  In  which  case  the  individual  mind  cannot  \ 
but  be  assured  beyond  all  peradventure  that  every 
appearance  of  change  in  the  total  World-process  is 
nothing  else  than  the  simple  illusion  by  which  the  , 
individual  mind  itself  unconsciously  projects  into  the  i 
outer  world  of  nature  its  own  spontaneously  imaged 
form  of  a  more  or  less  radical  transition  which  in 
reality  has  taken  place  in  the  inner  world  of  the 
growing  individual  mind  alone.  With  the  divine 
instinct  of  its  own  inherent  changelessness  as  77iind 
the  individual  mind  at  first  unsuspectingly  assumes 
that  change  is  possible  only  in  the  world  which  seem- 
ingly exists  there,  external  to  mind.  It  feels,  how- 
ever vaguely,  that  the  inward  and  spiritual  is  the 
eternal  ;  that  the  outward  and  material  alone  can 
change  and  perish.  At  a  later  stage  it  awakes  to  the 
deeper  consciousness  in  which  it  sees  that  the  "outer" 
is  after  all  only  the  outer  of  the  "inner  ;"  that  in  fact 
the  outer  world  of  nature  exists  and  can  exist  only  as 
the  least  adequate  form  of  the  outward  expression  of 


340  MIRACLES. 

the  inner,  spontaneous,  infinitely  self-sufficing  and 
eternally  self-unfolding  perfect  Mind.  And  the 
awaking  to  this  fact  consists  in  seeing  that  "matter" 
is  but  the  illusory  form  of  Energy  which,  both  in  its 
total  quantity  and  in  its  ultimate  modes  of  manifes- 
tation, is  absolutely  unchanging. 

And  now  if  we  remember  that  the  oriental  mind  is 
characteristically  unreflecting,  and  hence  that  what- 
ever processes  take  place  within  it  are  by  it  never 
critically  observed  as  such,  but  are  only  unconsciously 
unfolded  in  the  form  of  vivid  imagery  which,  in  the 
very  fact  of  being  produced,  is  necessarily  projected 
into  the  w^orld  of  outer  phenomena  and  implicitl}^  be- 
lieved in  as  constituting  part  of  its  reality — if  we  re- 
member this  we  may  find  therein  a  valid  clew  to  the 
reasonable  interpretation  of  those  miracles  which  the 
Christian  world  has  always,  and  rightly,  looked  upon 
as  having  a  positive  and  vital  import  as  foreshadowing 
the  real  nature  and  destiny  of  man. 

How  then  shall  we  understand  the  account  of  the 
raising  of  Lazarus  ?  What  else  is  it  than  a  specially 
striking  phase  in  the  drama  of  the  human  soul  ? 
"Lord,  if  thou  hadst  been  here  my  brother  had  not 
died." — "Jesus  wept." — "Lazarus,  come  forth!" — 
Soul  speaks  ;  soul  responds ;  and  life  triumphs  over 
death  !  Surely  there  is  a  subtler  chemistry  in  that 
than  the  mere  reversal  of  molecular  relations  in  a 
human  body  already  in  process  of  decay  !     And  even 


MIRACIvES.  341 

when  we  add  to  this  the  calling  back  of  the  departed 
soul  and  its  reunion  with  the  body  now  revivified, 
this  still  is  only  an  external  relation.  A  body  re- 
stored to  life  is  still  a  body  ;  and  as  such  is  still  subject 
to  disease  and  predestined  to  a  second  dissolution. 
Whence  the  resurrection,  taken  in  this  literal  sense 
— that  is,  in  its  lowest  terms — must  necessarily  in- 
volve whatever  agonies  a  second  death  entails. 

Nay,  in  truth,  it  is  in  no  wise  a  convincing  argu- 
ment in  proof  of  immortality.  Rather,  in  essence,  it 
is  precisely  the  same  argument  agaiiist  immortality 
as  that  drawn  in  Plato's  Phcedo  from  the  analogy  of 
the  weaver  and  the  succession  of  coats  worn  out  and 
cast  aside  by  him,  though  he  too  comes  at  last  to  dis- 
solution. Let  it  be  proven  beyond  all  controversy 
that  immortality  necessitates  reincarnation,  yet  the 
fact  of  reincarnation  could  never  sufiice  as  ground  for 
faith  in  immortality.  If  the  soul  is  immortal  it  must 
be  so  from  its  own  inmost  nature  as  self-centered, 
spontaneous,  self-moving  ;  and  this  characteristic 
can  in  no  way  be  strengthened  by  any  quality  in- 
hering in  matter  ;  for  matter  is  characteristically  ex- 
ternal, each  particle  having  its  center  in  another, 
and,  in  fact  in  all  others,  being  essentially  inert  and 
moved  only  by  impressed  forces. 

While,  therefore,  the  vivid  dramatic  representation 
of  the  raising  of  Lazarus  may  serve  as  a  means  to 
strengthen  the  faith  and  stimulate  the  hope  and  in- 


342  MIRACLES. 

crease  the  present  comfort  of  unreflecting  minds,  it 
can  have  for  reflecting  minds  no  such  values  unless  it 
can  be  found  to  involve  another  and  more  subtly  spir- 
itual meaning  than  that  commonly  assumed.  In 
fact,  the  story  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
other  central  doctrines  of  the  Christian  world. 

One  of  the  profoundest,  and  hence  to  most  minds 
one  of  the  "obscurest"  of  these  doctrines  is  that  of 
"original  sin."  "All  men  are  born  in  sin."  "Man 
is  by  nature  evil."  Not  indeed  because  he  is  evil  is 
he  immortal  ;  and  3^et  were  he  not  immortal  he  could 
not  be  evil.  Not  because  man  sins  is  he  divine  in 
nature  ;  and  yet  were  he  not  divine  in  nature  he 
could  do  no  sin.  "Original  sin,"  the  primal  evil  in 
man,  consists  in  the  negative  fact  of  the  infinite  dis- 
crepancy between  the  fundamental  T^'pe  or  divine 
Ideal,  which  it  belongs  to  man  as  mind  to  fulfil,  and 
the  infinitesimal  degree  of  that  Type  realized  in  and 
for  the  individual  at  any  given  moment,  and  above  all 
at  the  moment  of  birth. 

Out  of  this  state  of  "original  sin"  it  is  the  true  des- 
tiny of  every  human  soul  to  be  redeemed.  And,  it 
may  be  added,  failure  (which  involves  refusal),  to 
make  use  of  the  proper  means  to  this  redemption, 
such  failure  inevitably  resulting  in  "arrested  devel- 
opment," is  precisely  and  in  its  ver}^  nature  the  "un- 
pardonable sin." 

Again,  "original  sin"  is  "transmitted,"  only  in  the 


MIRACLES.  343 

sense  that  at  birth  the  individual  mind  is  what  it  is 
only  through  heredity/  But  also  it  is  simply  nega- 
tive (1)  in  the  sense  that  the  inherited  tendencies  of 
the  individual  mind,  by  the  very  fact  that  they  are  in- 
herited, are  present  at  first  only  in  germ  and  involve 
endless  contradictions  because  derived  through  an  in- 
definite multiplicity  of  lines  of  inheritance,  and  (2) 
in  the  sense  that,  as  being  rudimental,  the  whole 
character  of  the  individual  awaits  unification  and 
completion  through  its  own  positive  activity  as  an  in- 
dividual. But  the  inherited  qualities  of  the  indi- 
vidual are  predispositioyis  to  act  in  this  and  in  that 
particular  way — in  ways  indeed  which  are  mutually 
contradictory,  and  above  all  in  ways  contradicting 
the  fundamental  Ideal  or  typical  Nature  which  it  is 
his  true  destiny  to  fulfil,  and  toward  the  fulfilment  of 
which  the  deepest  element  in  his  heredity — his  divine 
instinct  due  to  his  descent  as  mind  from  the  perfect 
Mind — also  predisposes  him.  He  is  predestined  to 
act  sanely.  He  is  predestined  to  act  insanely.  He 
is  predestined  to  act  divinely.  He  is  predestined 
to  act  satanically.  He  has  predispositions  toward 
the    angelic  life    and     predispositions     toward     the 


^That  the  sin  of  the  first,  or  any  other,  parents  should  be 
trau£mitted,  as  si)i,  as  specific,  positive  offense,  is  certainly 
a  doctrine  worthy  of  Pascal's  description  {Pensees,  Article 
IV,  ii),  as  ''a  mystery  utterly  foreign  to  our  reflective  con- 
sciousness— le  viysiere  le  plus  eloigne  de  7iotre  connoissance.'''' 
In  respect  of  heredity,  compare  below,  Essay  on  "Christian 
Ethics  as  Compared  with  the  Ethics  of  Other  Religions." 


344  MIRACLES. 

merely  brutish  life.  Such  chaos  of  contradictory 
predispositions  is  infinitely  evil.  And  yet  it  is 
only  as  these  are  merged  in  him  that  he  can  even 
be  conceived  as  emerging  into  individualized,  con- 
scious existence.  And  so  the  individual  is  not  only 
predestined  to  this  chaos  of  evil  ;  it  is  absolutely  in- 
evitable that  he  should  be  so  predestined  if  he  is  to 
exist  as  an  individual  at  all. 

Nevertheless,  the  very  fact  of  his  existence  as  an 
individualized  conscious  unit  necessarily  involves  a 
sense  of  this  contradiction,  and  this  is  a  spur  to 
remedial  thought  and  action.  That  is,  not  only  is  it 
his  destiny  to  suffer  the  pangs  of  this  chaos  ;  it  is 
also  his  destiny  to  enter  at  once  upon  a  struggle 
having  for  its  fundamental  purpose  the  turning  of 
the  chaos  into  cosmos.  It  is  precisely  this  struggle, 
duly  regulated,  that  constitutes  the  process  of  his  re- 
de77iption.  And  because  the  struggle  is  primarily  the 
individual's  own  struggle,  it  necessarily  involves  the 
individual's  own  choice  as  to  time,  as  to  means, 
as  to  method  of  the  struggle. 

Evidently,  then,  man  is  not  only  predestined  to 
act  ;  he  is  also  predestined  to  choose  the  time,  the 
means  and  the  method  of  his  own  action.  But  choice 
is  nothing  else  than  self-definition  of  the  mind  as 
will  ;  that  is,  choice  is  just  the  initial  form  of  self- 
determination    or    Freedom.     So   that,  strange  as  it 


MIRACLES.  345 

may  seem,  it  is  but  the  literal  truth  to  say  that  man 
is  predestined  to  be  free. 

But  again,  his  freedom  may  assume  the  negative 
form  ;  so  that  the  acts  he  chooses  may  only  fulfil 
the  less  adequate — i.  e. ,  the  bruteward  tending — 
predispositions  of  his  nature.  Nay,  he  may  even 
choose  to  fulfil  the  perverted  or  demonic  predispo- 
sitions. In  which  case  he  only  chooses  to  prolong 
and  intensify  the  primal  chaos  of  his  being  ;  and  that 
is  the  same  as  refusing  to  realize  the  cosmos,  to 
which  his  highest  or  divine  predispositions  urge  him. 
And,  let  us  repeat,  it  is  this  setting  up  and  empha- 
sizing of  self-contradiction — of  "rebellion  against  the 
higher  law''  of  his  own  nature — as  the  permanent 
state  of  the  individual:  it  is  this  which  constitutes  the 
really  "unpardonable  sin."  From  which  it  becomes 
evident  that  the  soul  that  sins  dies  in  the  fact  of  sin- 
ning ;  and  "the  wages  of  sin  is  death,''  precisely  be- 
cause "sin  is  a  transgression  of  the  law"  of  mind  as 
Mind.^  This,  indeed,  would  seem  to  be  the  most 
direct  and  reasonable  interpretation  of  the  statement 
attributed  to  Christ'  that  "whosoever  shall  speak 
against  the  Holy  Spirit,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven  him  ;" 
especially  when  taken  in  connection  with  that  other 
declaration  also  reported  of  Jesus'  that  the  Paraclete, 


^Cf.  above,  p.  31  fol.  -Matthew,  XII,  32. 

•''Fourth  Gospel,  XV,  26. 


346  MIRACI.ES. 

proceeding  from  the  Father,  is  none  other  than  the 
"Spirit  of  Truth." 

And  now,  through  the  lens  of  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine thus  briefly  indicated,  we  may  look  for  a  more 
vital  meaning  than  the  one  usuall}'  assumed  as  being 
involved  in  the  story  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus.  In 
seeking  for  this  more  vital  meaning  it  will  be  well  to 
notice  in  the  first  place  that  the  household  of  Bethany 
where  Jesus  was  so  especially  at  home,  consisted  of 
three  strongly  contrasted  personalities.  Of  the  two 
sisters  one  was  so  intently  occupied  with  present 
domestic  duties  as  to  preclude  an}^  very  elaborate  con- 
sideration of  a  world  beyond.  It  may  even  be  sus- 
pected that  her  method  of  housekeeping  was  not  far 
removed  from  that  peculiarly  solemn  kind  which  so 
cleans  the  windows  that  instead  of  polarizing  the  light 
of  paradise  and  filling  the  atmosphere  of  every  room 
with  the  glow  and  prismatic  beauties  of  the  heavenly 
radiance,  only  produces  such  tension  in  the  glass  as 
stops  out  all  the  warmer  undulations  and  lets  in  those 
alone  beneath  which  all  things  assume  a  spectral, 
sepulchre-anticipating  hue.  Far  removed  from  this 
the  other  sister  was  characteristicall}'  enthusiastic, 
mystical,  devotedly  religious.  Her  chief  anxieties 
were  directed  toward  learning  the  secret  of  the  leaven 
of  that  bread  which  cometh  down  from  above,  and  in 
becoming  rightly  trained  for  such  housekeeping  as 
will  be  of  most  avail  in  the  mansion  she  had  come  to 


MIRACLES.  347 

look  forward  to  as  being  prepared  for  her  in  the 
Father's  House.  Ouite  different  from  either  of  these 
appears  to  have  been  the  brother.  A  healthy,  kindly, 
cheerful  mind,  we  may  safely  assume  that  he  went 
about  his  work  from  day  to  daj^  with  no  sense  of 
present  burden  or  of  haunting  questions  concerning 
the  future  life. 

Upon  such  nature  the  visits  of  Jesus  would  for  long 
be  without  appreciable  effect.  No  doubt  his  kindly 
nature,  never  yet  stirred  deeply,  would  experience  a 
vague  degree  of  added  warmth  in  presence  of  the 
mildl)^  grave,  intensely  earnest,  personalit}^  of  Jesus. 
Yet  the  Master's  words,  which  were  as  sunbeams  to 
Mary,  were  to  Lazarus  no  more  than  far-off  music 
scarcely    perceived. 

How  long  did  this  seeming  passivity  continue? 
We  know  nothing  of  the  details.  We  can  only  infer 
that  with  each  new  visit  the  distant  music  grew  more 
distinct  — came  nearer.  More  and  more,  too,  Mary's 
words  must  have  awakened  within  him  the  same 
vague  sense  of  rhythm.  The  elements  were  gather- 
ing within  him  for  the  repetition  of  the  world's  first 
great  miracle — the  awaking  of  a  human  soul  to  the 
consciousness  of  its  own  true  destiny.  And  while 
they  were  only  gathering  he  could  not  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  be  in  the  least  aware  of  what  was  in  pro- 
gress. 

At  length  the  fusion  came.     Just  how   it  came   we 


348  MIRACLES. 

can  only  dimly  guess.  All  we  know  is  that  some 
sudden,  terrifying  change  had  come  over  Lazarus — 
a  change  that  seemed  to  involve  his  death.  The 
most  probable  conjecture  would  seem  to  be  that  of  his 
sudden  awakening  to  the  full  significance  of  life — so 
sudden  and  overwhelming  as  to  produce  a  state  of 
trance  with  rigidity  and  seeming  lifelessness  of  body 
— and  that  when  he  awoke,  Jesus,  who  had  been 
called,  was  there  to  comfort  him  and  to  comolete  his 
waking  into  actual  newness  of  genuinely  spiritual 
life. 

With  him  the  primal  chaos  had  been  so  diffuse  that 
half  his  life  had  already  passed  before  the  inherent 
contradictions  of  that  chaos  developed  sufficient  ten- 
sion to  produce  within  him  any  really  deep  sense  of 
insufficiency  or  need  of  transformation  on  his  part. 
And  when  the  shock  of  consciousness  did  come  it 
was  with  such  force  as  to  seem  fairly  annihilating. 
Living  so  long  without  true  life,  he  must  indeed  be 
killed  that  he  might  be  made  alive.  In  short,  his 
appears  to  have  been  one  of  those  cases  in  which 
the  actual  inner  conscious  process  of  individual  re- 
demption takes  place  with  such  suddenness  and  com- 
pleteness as  well  nigh  to  threaten  the  sense  of  per- 
sonal continuity.  Awaking,  conviction,  conversion 
appear  to  take  place  all  in  the  same  instant ;  and  the 
transformation  which  usually  takes  place  so  slowly 
as  to  occupy  a  life-time  here  assumes  so  violent    and 


miraci.es.  349 

impetuous  a  character  as  to  suggest  the  simultaneous 
annihilation  and  creation  of  a  world.  Whence  all 
men  look  on  in  amazement,  and  say  one  to  another  : 
"Can  this  be  the  same  man  we  have  known  hitherto  ?" 
while  he  himself  is  also  dazed  in  his  own  self-recog- 
nition. He  is  alive  ;  but  his  life  to-day  gives  the 
color  of  death  to  all  his  past  life.  Out  of  such  death- 
in-life  he  was  awakened  by  the  truly  divine  person- 
ality of  the  Master.  In  these  last  moments  he  has 
been  brought  to  the  clear  consciousness  of  the  real 
truth  and  blessedness  of  the  actual  spiritual  life  in 
which  true  immortality  inheres.  And  in  ever}^  word 
he  has  heard  the  divine  command  :  "Loose  him  and 
let  him  go  ;"  and  in  every  movement  of  his  soul  he 
feels  the  grave-cloths  of  mere  dead  custom  and 
formality  bursting  asunder  and  leaving  him  free  to  live 
the  life  of  genuine,  practical  reason  and  thus  to  de- 
velop an  evergrowing  rhythmic  relation  to  the  eternal 
Father  of  all. 

What  Lazarus  did  thereafter  we  do  not  know — 
need  not  know.  He  had  doubtless  always  been  a  kind- 
ly soul  ;  he  must  thereafter  have  been  a  noble  soul;  a 
great  soul  he  was  not  in  the  sense  of  being  fitted  to 
do  the  great  deeds  of  the  world.  But  what  is  of  most 
significance  to  us  here  is  this  :  That,  looked  at  in  the 
way  just  indicated,  the  "raising  of  Lazarus  from  the 
dead"  assumes  a  meaning  universal  and  richly  prac- 
tical as  being  essentially  typical  of  the  process  of  re- 


350  MIRACLES. 

demption  which  is  indispensable  to  the  reall}-  ma- 
tured life  of  every  human  soul.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  question  whether  the  miracle  of  the  literal  restor- 
ation to  physical  life  of  a  man  who  had  been  some 
days  dead,  so  that  decay  had  already  become  far  ad- 
vanced— such  question  is  in  truth  of  as  little  real  re- 
ligious moment  to  the  reflective  consciousness  as  is 
the  question  whether  mere  water  was  ever  directly 
turned  to  wine.  And  as  for  scientific  significance, 
such  question,  on  the  face  of  it,  has  none  whatever, 
being  self-contradictory  in  its  very  form. 

Nevertheless,  to  the  unreflecting  consciousness, 
which  sees  all  things  as  in  a  vision  and  cannot 
recognize  the  truth  except  in  the  form  of  imager)'', 
the  pictorial  form  is  undeniably  helpful  and  even 
altogether  indispensable.  Let  not  him  who  has 
grown  be3'ond  the  need  of  the  elementary  media  of 
the  world's  education  scorn  these  media  as  being  of 
no  farther  use  at  all.  The  immature  ye  have  always 
with  you.  Let  the  worthiest  and  most  efficient 
means  to  their  advancement  beyond  immaturity  be 
preserved  and  rightly  valued.  Na}'-,"  the  beauty  of 
the  image  as  apprehended  by  the  higher  sensuous 
consciousness  itself  is  only  enhanced  as  the  image 
becomes  increasingly  transparent  to  reason  which  is 
but  the  more  deeply  discerning  and  more  widely 
comprehending  mode  of  mind.  So  that  so  far  from 
any  one,  in  the  course  of  truly  rational  self-develop- 


MIRACLES.  351 

ment,  ever  getting  "beyond"  the  image  in  the  sense 
of  reaching  a  stage  of  advancement  where  the  image 
ceases  to  interest  and  charm  him,  his  higher  cultiva- 
tion only  reveals  a  subtler  value  in  the  image  than 
he  had  hitherto  suspected,  and  thus  makes  of  it  a 
richer  means  to  his  enjoyment  and  further  growth. 
Though  here,  too,  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  the 
real  miracle  is  that  primal,  essential  miracle  consist- 
ing in  the  inner  process  of  the  m.ind's  own  self-un- 
folding, the  first  step  in  which  consists  in  awaking 
to  the  consciousness  of  "original  sin"  as  consisting 
in  that  chaos  of  contradictory  tendencies  inborn  in 
every  member  of  the  race. 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  that  great  central  miracle 
of  all  history — the  miracle  of  Christ's  own  resurrec- 
tion. The  rapid  culmination  of  the  career  of  Jesus 
was  but  the  outward  expression  of  his  rapidly  self- 
unfolding  inner  consciousness.  His  whole  doctrine 
focused  in  the  conception  of  the  absolute  unitj^  of  the 
human  and  the  divine  nature.  First  of  all  he  feels 
this  in  his  own  personality,  and  through  that  person- 
ality in  its  every  mode  and  every  degree  he  strives  to 
bring  his  disciples,  and,  through  them,  all  the  world 
to  the  same  state  and  same  degree  of  consciousness 
as  that  to  which  he  has  himself  attained.  "I  and 
my  Father  are  one."  "He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father."  "In  that  day  you  shall  know  that 
I  am  in  the  Father,  and  3-e  in  me,  and  I  in  you." 


352  MIRACLES. 

"It  is  your  Father's  good  will  to  give  you  the  King- 
dom." It  is  this  central  conception  of  the  unity  of 
the  human  spirit  with  the  divine  spirit,  which  was 
afterward  so  wonderfully  summarized  by  Paul  in  the 
declaration  :  "All  things  are  yours,  and  ye  are 
Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's.'" 

As  the  end  approached  the  consciousness  of  the 
Master  rapidly  intensified.  And  this  intensifying 
consciousness  involved  a  deepening  sense  of  contra- 
diction between  what  had  been  accomplished  and 
what  he  had  hoped  for  ;  so  that  on  more  than  one 
occasion  grief  at  seeming  failure  threatened  wholly 
to  overwhelm  him.  Yet  in.  reality  this  grief  was 
only  the  measure  of  the  clearness  of  the  vision  with 
which  he  saw  the  infinitely  rich,  divine  Ideal  of 
positive  spiritual  Life  which  each  and  every  human 
soul  must  realize  in  and  for  itself  in  order  that  the 
abstract  typical  oneness  of  man  with  God  may  be 
fulfilled  or  rendered  truly  concrete  and  vital. 

It  was  in  this  way  that,  in  those  last  conferences 
between  himself  and  his  disciples,  conferences  match- 
lessly epitomized,  if  not  also  idealized,  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel — it  was  in  this  wa}'  that  Jesus  was  led  to 
dwell  wholly  upon  the  future  and  to  see  with  re- 
doubled clearness  the  absolutely  spiritual  nature  and 
also  the  world-wide,  time-filling  extent  of  his  mission 


^I  Corinthians,  III,  23. 


MIRACLES.  353 

to  mankind.  And  as  he  faced  with  this  steadier  gaze 
the  eternal  import  of  his  message  to  human  souls  the 
last  shadow  of  temporal  Messiahship  faded  utterly 
away  and  every  sentence  uttered  by  him  seemed  only 
intended  to  prepare  his  disciples  for  that  culminating 
affirmation  :  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world  : 
if  My  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then  would *my 
servants  fight  *  *  *  [rather]  to  this  end  am  I 
come  into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear  witness  unto 
the  truth." 

Clear  beyond  all  question  as  to  the  true  import  of 
his  mission,  he  could  not  but  see  unmistakably  his 
own  approaching  death.  Refusing  to  lead  an  insur- 
rection against  the  Roman  power,  his  own  people 
would  turn  the  edge  of  the  irony  of  fate  against  him 
by  causing  him  to  die  under  the  charge  of  stirring  up 
sedition.  And  yet  the  sense  of  the  unity  and  univer- 
sality and  eternity  of  the  type  to  which  all  minds  as 
minds  belong  lifted  him  above  all  fear  and  all  equiv- 
ocation, and  bore  him  onward  without  the  slightest 
hesitation  to  the  end 

It  was  this  truth  which  he  so  profoundly  felt,  and 
which  he  so  vividly  figured  to  himself  and  to  his  dis- 
ciples under  the  form  of  his  own  oneness  with  the 
Father  and  of  their  oneness  with  him.  And  yet  this 
truth  presented  a  still  deeper  and  wider  meaning  than 
could  be  adequately  indicated  even  through  such  im- 
agery.  Hence  such  deeply  significant  mystical  expres- 


354  MIRACLES. 

sions  as  that  given  in  his  reported  and,  as  can  hardly 
be  doubted,  idealized  direct  communing  with  the 
Father:^  *'0,  Father,  glorify  thou  me  with  thine 
own  self  with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  thee  before 
the  world  was. "  Being  one  with  God  he  could  not 
be  less  than  eternal  in  his  existence.  And  that  he 
did  not  confine  this  mystically  apprehended  univer- 
sality and  eternit}^  of  existence  to  himself  is  put  be- 
yond all  question  by  the  expression  just  preceding, 
to  the  effect  that  "this  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should 
know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and  him  whom  thou 
didst  send,  even  Jesus  Christ."  Clearly  the  assump- 
tion here  is  that  the  "eternal  life"  is  the  perfect  life, 
and  pertains  to  each  and  all  according  to  the  degree 
of  actual  rational  self-development  attained. 

It  was  quite  in  this  mood,  too,  that  he  said  to  his 
disciples  :  "I  came  out  from  the  Father,  and  am 
come  into  the  world  ;  again  I  leave  the  world  and  go 
unto  the  Father."  In  fact  there  were  two  phases  of 
his  existence — his  eternal  existence  with  the  Fathtr, 
and  his  temporal  existence  with  men.  But  also  such 
announcement  could  not  be  comprehended  in  any 
adequate  degree  by  the  disciples,  and  so  could  not 
but  awake  within  them  deepest  sorrow  and  anxiety. 
And  recognizing  this  he  adds'the  assurance  :  "In  my 
Father's  house  are  many  mansions  ;  if  it  were  not  so 


^Fourth  Gospel,  XVII,  5fol. 


MIRACIvES.  355 

I  would  have  told  you  ;  for  I  go  to  prepare  a  place 
for  you.  And  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for  you,  I 
come  again,  and  will  receive  you  unto  myself ;  that 
where  I  am  there  ye  may  be  also  "  The  eternal  as- 
pect of  life  is  theirs  no  less  than  his.  Nay,  more,  he 
assures  them  that  he  will  not  leave  them  desolate. 
He  will  intercede  with  the  Father  so  that  another 
Comforter  shall  be  given  them.  And  that  Com- 
forter, Helper,  "Paraclete,"  shall  be  nothing  less 
than  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  who,  when  he  is  come,  will 
"guide  them  into  all  the  truth." 

The  outlook  widens,  then  !  He  is  going  away  for 
their  good  !  "It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away  ; 
for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come  un- 
to you;  but  if  I  go,  I  will  send  him  unto  you." 
What  a  vista  is  opening  out  before  them,  could  they 
but  understand  I  It  is  in  truth  nothing  less  than  the 
whole  history  of  the  world.  The  universal,  eternal 
Spirit  of  Truth  can  really  be  present  to  the  individual 
consciousness  only  in  proportion  as  outer  sensuous 
forms  dissolve  and  fade  from  view.  The  science  of 
the  world  is  possible  only  in  so  far  as  the  things  of 
the  world  become  transparent  and  reduced  to  the 
rank  of  mere  media — media  revealing  to  the  deeper 
vision  of  Reason  the  universal,  vital  relations  which 
give  to  outward  things  their  reality  and  concrete  sig- 
nificance. 

And  yet,  doubtless,  to  the  man  Jesus  also,  the  out- 


356  MIRACLES. 

look  was  rather  a  mystic  vision  than  a  positively 
reasoned  representation  in  clear  detail,  of  the  actual 
process  by  which  the  Spirit  of  Truth  was  to  enter  into 
the  present  concrete  process  of  human  development 
and  prove  to  be  the  efficient  Comforter,  Advocate, 
Helper,  Paraclete,  of  all  struggling,  erring,  despair- 
ing, hoping  individual  human  souls.  Indeed  his  own 
assurances  waver,  and  cross  each  other,  and  yet 
blend,  like  the  prophetic  dissolving  view  they  really 
constituted.  He  has  but  just  promised  them  the 
Comforter,  whose  coming  depends  upon  his  own  de- 
parture and  hence  renders  that  departure  expedient 
for  them.  And  now,  almost  in  the  same  breath,  he 
assures  them  :  "A  little  while,  and  ye  behold  me  no 
more  ;  and  again  a  little  while,  and  ye  shall  see  me." 
The  Comforter  is  necessary  to  them.  But  the  Com- 
forter will  not  come  while  the  Masterhimself  remains 
visibly  present  in  their  midst.  Yet  his  absence  is 
not  to  be  permanent  nor  even  much  prolonged. 
"Again  a  little  while  and  ye  shall  see  me."  After  all, 
though  the  Comforter  will  not  come  while  the  Master 
remains  present  to  their  senses,  yet  as  the  ac- 
tual Spirit  of  Truth  it  will  not  depart  when  he  returns 
in  his  truly  universal  and  glorified  form.  The  dis- 
solving of  his  outward  form  from  the  time  and  space 
to  which  thus  far  their  consciousness  had  been 
mainh'  limited,  will  give  occasion  for  the  unfolding 
of  those  higher  modes  of  mind  through  which  they 


MIRACLES.  357 

will  be  able  to  recognize  his  spiritual  and  far  more 
truly  real  Presence. 

Such  would  seem  to  be  the  real  clew  to  the  actual 
meaning  of  the  story  of  the  resurrection  of  the  Christ 
as  formulated  and  related  by  his  disciples.  Wrought 
up  to  the  most  intense  degree  of  mingled  hope  and 
fear  concerning  the  Master's  fate  and  their  own  des- 
tin3^  wholly  occupied  with  the  mystic  sayings  in 
which  he  had  latterly  so  much  addressed  them,  and 
which  at  the  best  they  could  comprehend  only  in 
their  least  adequate  import,  the  disciples,  dazed  and 
helpless,  could  only  await  the  unfolding  of  events. 

Stunned  b}^  his  actual  tragic  death,  they  could 
only  cower  in  fear  and  gather  in  secret  places  to  com- 
fort one  another  and  stimulate  hope  through  repeti- 
tion of  his  words  and  recalling  his  wondrous  per- 
sonality. Dwelling  in  timid  expectation  upon  those 
of  the  Master's  words  which  most  vividly  expressed 
his  love  for  them,  they  could  not  but  center  all  their 
thoughts  upon  his  promise  of  return,  and  all  their 
hopes  upon  its  literal  and  speediest  fulfilment.  And, 
utterly  uncritical  in  habit  of  mind  as  they  were,  they 
could  see  no  real  contradiction  in  the  thought  that  he 
would  bodily  revive  and  once  more  live  and  dwell 
among  them.  Nay,  they  could  not  clearly  conceive 
of  his  being  still  alive  save  in  the  actual  form  of  his 
bodily  presence.  Despairing  in  his  absence,  hoping 
for    the   renewal    of    his    sensuously    real    presence, 


358  MIRACLES. 

they  were  in  just  such  state  of  expectancy  as  by  mu- 
tual excitation  actually  to  biing  themselves  to  see 
what  above  all  else  in  all  the  world  they  most  desired 
to  see. 

The  first  to  experience  the  vision  of  the  risen  Lord 
is  the  deeply  emotional,  mystically  minded  Mary, 
who  had  already  beheld  two  angels  in  the  tomb  and 
heard  them  speak.  Then  he  appears  to  the  as- 
sembled disciples  while  they  are  mutually  encour- 
aging one  another  to  expect  his  reappearance.  A 
third  time,  according  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  while 
some  of  the  disciples  were  engaged  in  fishing,  he  ap- 
peared to  them.  Going  back  to  the  occupation  from 
which  he  had  called  them  to  a  higher  mission,  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  memory  of  him  should  recur  so 
vividly  in  their  excited  minds  as  to  amount  to  an  ap- 
parition— the  act  recorded  as  being  now  performed  by 
him  in  their  presence  being  precisely  the  same  as 
they  had  so  often  seen  him  perform  before. 

Specially  striking  and  suggestive,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  account  of  the  journey  of  Cleopas  and 
his  companion  (two  otherwise  unknown  disciples), 
to  Emmaus.  These  the  risen  Christ  joined  on  the 
way,  but  remained  unknown  to  them,  and  even 
made  as  if  he  knew  nothing  of  the  sad  events  con- 
cerning which  they  were  communing  with  one 
another  by  the  way.  In  fact,  it  was  only  through 
his   breaking    bread  and  blessing  it  at  the    meal  at 


MIRACLES.  359 

Emmaus  that  their  eyes  were  opened  to  know  him. 
And  in  that  same  instant  he  vanished  out  of  their 
sight.  The  more  deeply  spiritual  manner  involved 
in  his  exposition  of  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures,  be- 
ginning from  Moses  and  the  prophets,  they  had 
failed  utterly  to  recognize.  Only  in  the  simple,  sen- 
suous fact  of  breaking  bread  did  they  discover  the 
likeness.  And  in  that  moment  the  apparition 
vanished— a  moment  the  psychological  significance 
of  which  is  marvelously  (however  unconsciously), 
symbolized  in  Rembrandt's  "Supper  at  Emmaus," 
where  the  joy  of  recognition  is  suddenly  eclipsed  by 
their  amazement  at  the  blinding  light  which  remains 
in  place  of  the  Master's  vanished  form.' 

According  to  lyuke,  who  alone  gives  this  story 
circumstantially,  these  two  disciples  returned  at  once 
to  Jerusalem,  w^here  they  found  the  eleven,  with 
others,  assembled.  By  their  testimony  these  two 
added  to  the  general  rejoicing  at  the  evidence  thus 
far  received  of  the  actual  return  to  life  on  the  part  of 
Jesus.  And  even  while  they  were  rejoicing  another 
apparition  of  the  Master  occurred  to  them.  And 
though  this  was  what  they  desired,  yet  none  the  less 
it  terrified  them.  And  their  terror  was  only  allayed 
by  proofs  of  his  real  bodily  presence — proofs  by  which 
they  were  satisfied  that  they  had  not  "seen  a  spirit," 
as   at   first    they  feared.     Following  which    the    ap- 


360  MIRACLES. 

parition  led  them  to  another  place,  where  again  it 
"parted  from  them,"  or  disappeared. 

Both  Matthew  and  Mark,  however,  relate  that  even 
then  these  apparitions  were  by  no  means  accepted  by 
all  as  actual  appearances  of  the  risen  Lord.  And  as- 
suredly we  may  easily  see  at  the  present  day  that  these 
psychological  conditions  were  such  as  to  render  the 
apparitions  easily  explicable  as  simple  psychological 
phenomena.  In  which  case  we  are  left  free  to  re- 
gard the  miracle  of  Christ's  bodily  resurrection  as 
thus  far  a  purely  subjective  miracle  ;  that  is,  as  hav- 
ing taken  place  only  in  the  highly  wrought  imagi- 
nations of  some  (not  all)  of  his  disciples. 

But  thus  we  are  the  more  bound  to  seek  for  a  deeper 
and  better  meaning  as  involved  in  the  hope  and  the 
belief  of  the  Church,  then  and  now,  concerning  this 
great  Mystery.  For  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  there  is  vital  truth  in  Paul's  declaration  that  "if 
Christ  hath  not  been  raised,  your  failh  is  vain  ;  ye 
are  yet  in  your  sins."  And,  further  :  "if  in  this  life 
only  we  have  hoped  in  Christ,  we  are  of  all  men  most 
pitiable.'" 

And  now  in  our  search  for  this  better  interpretation 
let  us  begin  with  that  wondrous,  dazzling  Light 
which  the  limitations  of  painting  suggested  to  the 
genius  of  the  painter  as  the  one  way  of  representing 


'^I  Corinthiatis,  XV,  i9. 


MIRACLES.  •  361 

to  the  eye  on  cauvas  the  miraculous  disappearance  of 
the  just  now  visible  bodily  form  of  the  risen  Master, 
and  also  the  transfiguring  effect  produced  in  the 
minds  of  the  two  disciples  by  the  assurance  that  he 
still  lived.  It  is  a  flash  in  the  gloom  ;  it  is  the  dawn 
of  spiritual  day,  even  while  the  outer  corporeal 
personal  presence  is  vanishing  into  the  night  of  dis- 
solution and  indistinguishable,  irreclaimable  dii-ptr- 
sion  amid  the  elements.  It  is  the  first  stage  in  the 
fulfilment  of  the  Master's  promise  that  on  liis  depar- 
ture from  their  midst  the  Comforter,  in  the  form  of 
the  living  Spirit  of  Truth,  would  come  to  them.  The 
"natural  body,"  consisting  of  the  outward  form  of 
their  Lord,  now  present  only  to  the  yearning  phan- 
tasy, was  already  dying  and  dissolving  into  the 
"spiritual  body '^  that  was  to  be.  The  qualities  of 
divine  personality,  so  conspicuous  in  the  living 
Jesus,  now  that  he  had  died,  were  for  the  first  time 
beginning  to  be  clearly  manifest  in  their  truly  uni- 
versal character  to  the  sorrowing  disciples.  More 
directly,  the  immediate  indispensable  condition  of 
their  clear  apprehension  of  the  ideal  character  con- 
stituting the  deeper  truth  of  the  Personality  of  Christ 
was  just   the  disappearance  of  the    individual,    sen- 


"" I  Corinthians,  XV,  42-44.  The  analogy  of  the  seed  dying 
into  the  life  of  the  plant  is  of  course  only  an  analogy,  and 
evidently  so  intended  by  Paul.  Yet  with  him  the  inference 
is  still  left  in  mystical  form— in  marvelously  beautiful  and 
suggestive  poetic  imagery— not  to  be  otherwise  understood. 


362  .  MIRACLES. 

suously  apprehended  form  in  and  through  which  that 
ideal  character  had  just  become  clearly  manifest  to 
men. 

Doubtless  any  given  t3^pe  is  at  first  most  easily 
seized  in  one  particular  form.  But  the  permanent 
holding  fast  of  such  single  form  produces  the  tacit 
conviction  that  the  type  is  really  present  in  that  form 
alone.  In  other  words,  through  such  restricted  view 
of  the  universal  type  as  manifest  in  just  the  one  form 
only,  the  type  itself  appears  not  merely  in,  but  also 
only  as.  that  one  particular  form.  Whence  it  is  evi- 
dent that  if  we  restrict  our  view  of  the  universal  type 
of  divine- human  Personality  to  the  one  man  Jesus  we 
lose,  or  rather  we  fail  ever  to  possess  ourselves  of,  the 
real  truth  of  the  universal,  eternal  Christ.  The  in- 
dividual, historical,  human  Christ  is  held  in  the  im- 
agination as  a  fixed,  relatively  lifeless  image  pertain- 
ing to  a  far,  and  increasingly,  distant  past.  And 
this  prevents  us  from  developing  the  richer,  deeper 
consciousness  of  the  infinite,  universal,  divine  and 
hence  eternal  Christ  who  is  absolutely  one  with  the 
Father — the  all  in  all  of  the  ceaseless,  living  Preseiit. 
We  will  not  allow  the  sensuously  apprehended  Master 
to  take  his  departure  from  us  ;  and  so  we  make  it  im- 
possible that  the  Spirit  of  Truth  should  unfold  into 
living  reality  in  our  higher  or  thinking  conscious- 
ness, and  thus  deprive  ourselves  of  the  real  presence 
of  the  Paraclete — the  measureless  comfort  of  knowing 


MIRACLES.  363 

the  truth  iu  its  universal  and  infinitely  richer  forms. 

And  yet  he  himself  declared  in  his  own  mystical 
way  :  "If  ye  loved  me,  ye  would  have  rejoiced  be- 
cause I  go  unto  the  Father  ;  for  the  Father  is  greater 
than  I."^  Not  distinguishing  between  the  particular 
form  and  the  universal  substance,  we  check  in  its 
earlier,  rudimentary  stage  the  great  miracle  of  the 
new  birth — which  is  also  the  resurrection — of  the 
universal  Christ  within  ourselves  ;  and  by  precisely 
so  much  do  we  fail  of  realizing  that  "hope  of  glory" 
of  which  the  actual  practical  unfolding  of  the  true 
Christ-nature  within  the  individual  soul  is  the  indis- 
pensable condition.  Faithless  in  our  faith  we  bury 
the  image  of  his  crucified  temporal  presence  in  the 
tomb  of  our  phantasy,  and  will  not  hear  the  voice  of 
the  Angel  of  Truth  bidding  us  look  up  with  the  Eyes 
of  Reason  and  behold,  as  the  real  truth  figured  in  the 
story  of  the  physical  resurrection  of  Jesus,  the  eternal 
Presence  of  the  universal  Christ  in  humanity,  assur- 
ing eternal  life,  endlessly  deepening  in  wealth  of  im- 
port, to  every  individual  soul  really  conforming  to  the 
divine  Law  of  Reason  inherent  in  each  and  all  alike. 

And  here  we  come  upon  the  truth  vaguely  shad- 
owed forth  in  that  world-old  doctrine  of  the  "trans- 
migration of  souls."  The  universal  Christ,  the 
eternal  Christ,  one  in  essence  with  the  Father,  that  is 


'Fourth  Gospel.    XIV,  28. 


364  MIRACLES. 

the  infinite  type  of  Personality.  And  that  type  is 
forever  reunfolded,  and  in  ceaseless  process  of  un- 
folding, in  individual  minds,  in  self-conscious,  spir- 
itual units.  So  that  the  actual  arising  of  each  and 
every  unit  of  this  type  is  the  "reincarnation"  of  the 
universal  Christ.  And  the  progressive  unfolding  of 
more  and  more  complex  forms  as  expressive  of  the  ex- 
panding wealth  of  continuously  developing  indi- 
vidual spiritual  life — when  individualized  conscious- 
ness has  really  been  once  attained — that  is  the  truth 
of  the  transmigration  of  the  individual  soul.  Nay, 
doubtless  such  "transmigration"  necessarily  involves, 
in  its  own  degree,  "reincarnation"  also. 

If  physiological  chemistry  is  to  be  trusted,  the  in- 
dividual human  soul,  in  the  course  of  an  excep- 
tionally prolonged  earthly  life,  already  passes  through 
a  dozen  "reincarnations."  And  doubtless  also  in  the 
course  of  its  further  progress  it  will  continue  such 
"reincarnations,"  though  always  in  strictly  logical 
consistency  with  its  own  needs  as  a  mind  or  conscious 
unit  of  energy  developing  in  accordance  with — or 
degenerating  in  contradiction  to — the  fundamental, 
unchanging  and  unchangeable  law  of  Mind.'  In 
other  words,  it  will  rise  in  the  angelic  scale  or  sink 


'Indeed  it  may  be  said  that  even  degeneracy  still  il- 
lustrates law  That  sin  entails  death — spiritual  death  (cf. 
above,  p.  31  fol.) — is  but  the  negative  aspect  of  the  law  of 
mind.  And  he  who  breaks  that  law  only  breaks  himself  on  the 
wheel  of  the  law  of  lawlessness. 


MIRACLKS.  365 

in  the  scale  demonic,  precisely  according  as  it  con- 
forms to  or  defies,  the  essential,  eternal  Christ-ideal. 
But  there  is  a  further  phase  in  the  miracle  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  Christ.  Had  the  man  Jesus  un- 
dertaken the  Messianic  task  in  the  sense  expected  of 
him  by  the  people  of  his  own  race,  he  might  possibly 
for  a  time  have  led  his  nation  to  greater  or  less  vic- 
tory and  temporary  independence ;  though  in  that 
period  it  can  scarcely  be  conceived  that  such  line  «of 
effort  should  at  last  have  ended  otherwise  than  dis- 
astrously for  leader  and  people  alike.  Happily  for 
the  history  of  this  world  Jesus  chose  to  accept  the 
then  existing  political  situation  and  to  urge  that  the 
first  great  need  was  the  establishment  of  the  King- 
dom of  Truth  in  the  earth.  The  greatest  epoch  in 
the  world's  history  was  already  entered  upon  when  a 
man  had  arisen  divine  enough  in  thought  to  see  and 
formulate,  and  divine  enough  in  character  to  un- 
flinchingly declare,  and  in  his  own  conduct  to  illus- 
trate the  doctrine:  "Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  and  its  righteousness,  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you."  For  such  personage,  dis- 
tinguishing with  perfect  clearness  between  the  inner, 
permanent  Reality,  and  the  outer,  passing  show  of 
things,  the  minimum  of  food,  and  raiment  and  shel- 
tered resting-place  suffices.  Nay,  in  contrast  w4th 
the  eternal  Kingdom  of  Truth,  the  kingdoms  and 
empires  and  robes  of  state  of  this   world,  alike   with 


366  MIRACLES. 

the  individual  garments  and  hovels  of  tiie  most  ab- 
ject slaves,  are  but  forms  of  the  mere  phantasmal 
"here  and  now."  Social  organization  and  individual 
organism — these  are  but  the  momentary  outer  phases 
which  the  divinely  constituted,  undying  spirit  of  hu- 
manity assumes  in  its  own  progressive  self-unfolding 
throughout  the  ages.  Only,  the  richer  the  degree  of 
actual  inward  spiritual  quality  developed  in  indi- 
vidual human  lives,  the  subtler  and  more  complex 
must  both  the  outward  individual  organism  and  the 
outward  social  organization  become. 

In  other  words,  the  universal,  eternal  Chri-t,  the 
infinite,  divine  Ideal,  realized  once  for  all  in  the  ab- 
solute, personal  Creator  in  his  character  of  Redeemer 
— this  universal  Christ  which  for  every  such  world  as 
ours  throughout  the  whole  of  infinite  space  and  in- 
finite duration,  is  at  the  outset  only  a  latent  form,  an 
unsuspected  possibility — everywhere  this  universal, 
eternal  Christ  works,  not  merely  through  but  in  and 
for  the  growing  individual  and  national  and  racial 
consciousness ;  so  that  particular  personages  and 
special  state  constitutions  unfold,  and  serve  their 
purpose,  and  outwardly  disappear,  at  once  preparing 
the  way,  and  making  room,  for  higher  forms  in  any 
given  particular  world. 

And  what  is  this  but  a  glimpse  of  the  truly  uni- 
versal Christ  eternally  in  process  of  "becoming,"  of 
evolution,  of  "transmigration,"  as  the  real  historical 


MIRACLES.  367 

Christ — as  the  actual,  eternally-begotten  Son  of  God? 
Not  less  than  this  can  the  real  resurrection  of  ihe 
Christ  signify.  And  this  includes  his  "second 
coming," — includes  it  as  the  perpetual  reappearance 
of  the  infinite,  divine  Type  in  the  form  of  individual 
immortal  souls  Mew  born  in  perishing  outward  bodies  ; 
and  also  in  the  more  cumbrous  and  wholly  perishing 
forms  of  those  institutions  which  embody  the  spirit  of 
an  age  and  serve  as  media  for  the  education  of  the 
self-centered  j^et  universally  related  and  imperisliable 
conscious  individuals  constituting  the  actual  race  of 
the  Sons  of  God. 

Such,  then,  is  the  great,  eternal,  all-inclu-^ive 
Miracle  of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ.  And  as  for  the 
individual  human  body — including  the  body  of  the 
Son  of  Man — that  is  sacred  only  to  the  uses  of  the 
human  soul;  when  it  ceases  to  be  organic  to  those 
uses  it  becomes  itself  a  sepulchre.  To  be  progres- 
sively redeemed  out  of  this,  and  out  of  all  other 
cramping,  material  limitations,  into  the  genuine  free- 
dom of  ever-increasing  fulness  of  rational  self-con- 
sciousness and  genuine  spiritual  life — that  is  the  true 
resurrection  of  the  individual  human  soul — a  resur- 
rection that  can  be  completed  only  through  endless 
individual  existence. 

Jesus  is  the  central  figure  of  the  world  because  he 
taught  mankind  the  divine  secret  of  genuine  spiritual 
life  as  the  central  truth  of  the  world.     And   in  truest 


368  MIRACLES. 

sense  the  miracle  of  his  resurrection  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  spiritual  resurrection  of  the  world.  Bringing  life 
as  immortality  to  light,  in  the  sense  of  declaring  the 
ideal  oneness  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  divine 
Spirit,  and  thus  indicating  that  immortality  pertains 
to  the  human  soul  from  its  very  nature,  he  proved 
not  only  his  own  immortality,  but  proved  also  that 
above  all  others  he  was  himself  the  Christ — the 
"Anointed  One" — because  his  mission  transcends  all 
other  missions.  Nay,  in  declaring  the  identity  in 
nature  as  between  God  and  man  Jesus  made  practical 
affirmation  of  the  infinitude  of  man  as  mind,  and  thus 
opened  the  way  for  the  demand  on  the  part  of  man 
that  ultimately  for  him  there  shall  be  no  insoluble 
mysteries,  no  hopeless  wonders,  no  reason-def3nng 
miracles  ;  but  that  rather,  in  the  course  of  his  endless 
and  endlessly  intensif3ung  individual  existence,  he 
shall  be  actually  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth  into 
all  the  truth.  Only  thus  can  be  rt-alized  the  good 
will  of  the  Father  to  give  to  the  Sons  of  God  the 
Kingdom.  Only  thus  can  rational  confirmation  be 
found  for  those  triumphant  words  :  "All  things  are 
yours,  and  ye  are  Christ's;  and  Christ  is  God's." 


Note  (omitted  by  oversight  from  p.  359) :  A  sermon  of 
rare  beauty  and  suggestivene^s  was  preached,  now  some 
years  since,  b}'  the  Rev.  R.  A.  Holland,  S.  T.  D.,  of  St.  Louis, 
on  the  theme,  ^' By  the  Way,"'  and  interpreting  the  appear- 
ance of  Christ  to  the  two  disciples  at  Kmmaus.  It  is  greatly 
to  be  wished  that  this  and  other  like  utterances  of  his  may 
yet  be  rendered  generally  available  in  book  form. 


VllI, 

CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AS  CONTRASTED  WITH 
THE  ETHICS  OF  OTHER  RELIGIONS. 


It  may  be  assumed  as  an  axiom  that  Ethics  is  pos- 
sible only  to  a  thinking  being.  Ethics  is  the  science 
of  the  principles  which  are  directly  involved  in  moral 
action,  involved  to  such  degree  and  in  such  sense  as 
that  they  determine  action  as  moral.  Only  a  being 
capable  of  reflecting  upon  the  nature  and  end  of  his 
own  conduct  is  capable  of  conduct  involving  the 
quality  of  morality.  That  conduct  alone  is  moral 
which  tends  toward  enriching  the  life  of  the  conscious 
being  performing  the  actions  constituting  the  con- 
duct. And  this  must  be  understood  as  meaning  that 
the  conduct  is  of  such  nature  as  to  enrich  the  life  of 
the  individual  in  his  character  as  a  conscious  being, 
as  a  mind.  All  conduct  is  original,  self-determining 
exercise  of  power.  No  one  ever  speaks  of  the  conduct 
of  an  animal,  but  only  of  the  conduct  of  a  man. 
Conduct  is  normal  or  moral  in  so  far  as  it  results  in 
the  unfolding  of  the  entire  individual  conscious  unit 
of  energy,  in  accordance  with  the  ultimate  t3'pe  of 
such    conscious   unit.     To  which  we  may   add  that 


370  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

only  a  thinking  being  is  capable  of  developing  any 
science  whatever,  which  implies,  of  course,  that  only 
such  being  can  develop  a  Science  of   Ethics. 

But  also  it  is  important  to  notice  that  the  very  un- 
folding of  science  by  such  being  is  itself  nothing  else 
than  one  aspect  in  the  total  process  of  the  self- 
unfolding  of  such  being.  And  by  as  much  as  the 
typical  or  ultimate  nature  of  the  thinking  being  is 
complex,  by  just  so  much  must  the  actual  evolution 
of  individuals  comprised  within  the  type  be  complex 
and  prolonged. 

In  fact,  this  evolutional  process  is  nothing  else  than 
the  process  known  as  History.  And  this  again  must 
really  be  understood  as  including  the  whole  essential 
process  of  biological  history  as  leading  up  to  man 
physiological,  as  well  as  the  sociological  histor}'  of 
man  as  the  process  of  unfolding  the  life  of  man 
psychical,  of  man  as  a  thinking,  feeling,  willing 
being. 

The  purpose  of  the  present  essay  is  to  present  in 
one  connected  view  the  fundamental  aspects  and 
stages  of  this  evolutional  process  in  so  far  as  it  con- 
sists in  the  unfolding  of  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
nature  and  basis  of  moral  obligation.  Of  course  the 
-essay,  with  its  deliberately  chosen  limitations,  can  be 
no  more  than  the  merest  sketch.  But  the  "mere 
sketch"  has,  or  may  have,  the  value  of  bringing  to 
light  fundamental  principles  which  to  most  minds  are 


CHRISTIAN   ETHICS.  371 

likely  to  be  obscured  through  excess  of  illustration  in 
more  elaborate  treatises. 

The  process  will  be  traced  through  three  essential 
stages  :  (1)  The  first  will  be  that  in  which  conscious- 
ness had  as  yet  attained  maturity  only  in  its  sensuous 
aspect.  In  this  stage,  accordingly,  the  highest  intel- 
lectual products  are  those  presented  in  the  form  of 
imagery.  (2)  The  second  stage  will  be  that  in  which 
reflection  has  so  far  unfolded  as  that  imagery  has 
ceased  to  be  in  itself  of  leading  interest,  but  also  in 
which  thought  has  not  been  able  wholly  to  free  itself 
from  imagery.  It  is  the  stage  of  the  "abstract  un- 
derstanding." (3)  The  third  stage  will  be  that  in 
which  the  reflective  consciousness  has  completely 
mastered  imagery,  or  is  in  the  clearly  apprehended 
way  of  doing  so,  and  in  which  it  grasps  the  concrete 
infinitude  and  self-containing  Totality  of  the  World, 
It  is  the  stage  of  Reason,  properly  speaking. 

No  doubt  imagination,  understanding  and  reason 
are  fundamental  modes  of  mind  as  mind.  No  doubt, 
too,  they  were  all  present  and  must  have  been  present 
from  the  first  in  the  actual  evolution  of  mind  in  the 
history  of  this  or  any  other  world.  But  also  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  in  its  evolution  mind  attained 
maturity  first  of  all  in  its  character  as  imaging 
power  ;  that  a  longer  period  was  required  for  it  to  be- 
come explicit  as  a  power  to  seize  relations,  while  still 
the  relations  seized  were  of  limited  range  and  in- 


372  CHRISTIAN   ETHICS. 

volved  in  tangible,  sensuously  apprehended  facts. 
Finally,  it  was  only  as  the  outcome  of  a  still  more  ex- 
tended disciplinary  course,  including  those  already 
named,  that  the  unfolding  mind  of  man  attained  the 
power  to  comprehend  that  total  complex  of  relations 
which  binds  all  into  one — a  complex  which  thus  consti- 
tutes the  essence  of  the  actual,  total,  concrete  Uni- 
verse. 


The  first  stage — that  is,  the  stage  in  which  imagi- 
nation is  the  maturest  phase  of  intelligence  as  yet  un- 
folded— presents  itself  to  our  view  as  that  period  of 
history  known  as  the  age  of  Primitive  Man.  It  is  the 
period  of  "ancient  history,"  properly  speaking.  In 
its  simplest  degree  also  it  is  the  stage  of  transition 
out  of  mere  animalhood  into  manhood,  and  thus  sug- 
gests the  whole  process  of  organic  evolution  as  its 
logical  presupposition. 

One  remark  must  be  made  in  this  connection,  how- 
ever, by  way  of  caution.  The  theory  of  evolution,  as 
ordinarily  presented,  breaks  down  in  its  attempt  to 
account  for  the  development  of  man.  In  fact,  so  far 
as  this  theory  assumes  to  account  for  more  complex 
forms  of  life  by  tracing  their  lineage,  through  less  and 
less  complex  forms,  back  through  time  to  the  proto- 
plasmic or  germinal  aspect  of  matter  at  the  bottom  of 
the  primal  sea,  it  really  reduces  the  whole  evolutional 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  373 

process  to  a  mere  elaboration  of  relations  of  physical 
energy  ;  in  which  case  it  breaks  down  altogether.  For 
such  vastly  complex  and  faultlessly  consistent  pro- 
cess as  that  which,  beginning  in  the  mechanical  and 
chemical  reactions  of  a  nebulous  mass,  has  un- 
swervingly pursued  its  course,  through  primitive 
cell,  and  multicellular  unfoldings,  to  the  realization 
of  endlessly  varied  organic  forms  including  the  human 
organism  itself,  with  its  manifold  and  successively 
appearing  inner  indications  of  relationship  to  all  the 
essential  types  of  the  animal  kingdom — such  vastly 
complex  and  faultlessly  consistent  process  involves  of 
necessity  a  further  factor  than  the  self-styled  evolu- 
tionist is  ever  willing  wholly  to  admit.  The  process 
is  one  whole  process.  As  such  it  is  but  the  con- 
cretely realized  form  of  one  whole  method.  And  yet 
method  is  really  inconceivable  save  as  consisting  of 
thought  self-defined.  But  thought  defining  itself — 
that  is  nothing  else  than  self-conscious  energy  or 
mind  realizing  itself  through  its  own  self- differen- 
tiation. 

Clearly,  then,  not  only  is  mind  the  culmination 
of  the  whole  process  of  Evolution  ;  Mind  is  also  the 
necessary  presupposition  of  that  process.  Whence 
man  as  organism  may  indeed  be  the  complex  focus  of 
the  whole  process  of  organic  evolution  ;  but  even  so 
he  is  not  derived  fro7n  the  lower  organisms,  but  only 
through  them.      Thus,  even  as  animal,  man  derives 


374  '       CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

bis  being  from  tbe  primal  Energy  or  Mind,  without 
which  self-conscious  primal  Energy  the  evolutional 
process  cannot  be  really  thought  at  all,  however  easy 
it  may  be  to  imagijie  the  process  as  taking  place 
otherwise.  How  much  more,  then,  is  it  impossible  to 
really  think  the  origin  of  man  as  mind  to  have  its  ex- 
planation in  mere  physical  forces  which  are  them- 
selves inexplicable  save  as  the  simpler  forms  of  the 
expression  of  Mind  ! 

Doubtless  it  is  true  that  individual  man  is  what  he 
is  at  birth  solely  through  the  process  of  "heredity." 
But  the  supreme  factor  in  his  heredity  is  just  that 
which  the  primal  Mind  itself  constitutes  From  that 
Mind,  and  from  that  alone,  man  not  only  derives  his 
whole  being,  but  above  all  inherits  his  esse?itial  nattcre 
as  man.^ 


^The  following  is  from  my  volume,  "The  World- Eriergy 
and  Its  Sel/-Co7iservatio?i,''  p.  295,  published  in  1890:  "  Evi- 
dently, then,  the  descent  of  man  from  successively  lower  and 
lower  orders  of  animals,  which  themselves  constitute  a 
minutely  graded  series  of  thought-forms,  and  even  of 
thought-functions,  is,  after  all,  nothing  else  than  his  ascent 
or  evolution  in  the  scale  of  godhood.  And  always  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  the  descent  of  man  cannot  possibly  have 
been  from  animals,  merely  as  animals,  merely  as  physical 
or  material,  or  brute  natures  (allowing  that  such  'natures' 
are  thinkable).  On  the  contrary,  every  step,  every  factor  in 
this  ascending  scale  of  his  evolution  is  possible  for  man  only 
because  each  step  and  each  factor  is  expressive  simply  of  the 
method  by  which  Man  the  Son,  is  born  of  God  the  Father, 
Just  as  Life  can  come  only  from  the  living,  though  it  may  be 
through  units  which  are  in  themselves  not  living;  so  Man 
the  thinker  can  come  only  from  God  the  Thinker,  though  it 
may  be  through  a  marvelous  series  of  complex,  more  or  less 
conscious  forms,  which  in  and  of  themselves  cannot  be  said 
to  think." 


CHRISTIAN   ETHICS.  375 

At  birth  each  individual  is  what  he  is  through 
heredity.  What  further  inferences  may  we  draw 
from  this  ?  It  is  that  he  is  predetermined  or  "pre- 
destined" toward  manifold  courses  of  action.  But  we 
must  not  forget  that,  above  all,  his  heredity  connects 
him  vitally,  in  type,  with  the  primitive,  eternally 
creative  Mind.  So  that  if  he  is  predestined  to  feel 
the  pangs  of  hunger  and  to  put  forth  effort  to  satisfy 
that  sense  of  contradiction  in  his  outer,  animal  life, 
he  is  not  less  predestined  to  experience  the  uneasi- 
ness of  wonder  and  so  to  put  forth  efforts  of  intelli- 
gence to  the  end  of  satisfying  this  sense  of  contradic- 
tion in  his  inner  psychic  life.  Man  is  foreordained 
to  live.  He  is  foreordained  to  act  outwardly.  But 
he  is  not  less  surely  foreordained  to  act  inwardly. 
He  is  foreordained  to  think,  to  define  himself  in  con- 
sciousness and  thus  to  regulate  himself  in  action.  Or, 
as  we  may  just  as  well  express  it,  man  is  predestined 
to  be  free. 

Thus  at  birth  man  is  a  complex  of  qualities  all 
which  are  due  to  heredity.  But  his  inheritance  is 
through  diverging  and  vastly  multifarious  lines.  He 
inherits  from  all  his  ancestors,  vicious  and  saintly 
alike.  And  all  these  inherited  tendencies  constitute 
in  sum  the  whole  of  his  instinctive  nature. 

As  instinctive,  therefore,  he  is  a  measureless  ag- 
gregate of  mutually  opposing  tendencies.  Or,  to  use 
a  figure,  he  is  a  bundle  of  contradictions,  and  as  such 


376  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

is  beyond  human  calculation.  In  him  there  shine 
alternately,  and  even  simultaneously,  the  life-inviting 
light  of  Paradise  and  the  life-withering  fires  of  the 
Inferno  By  birth,  by  instinct,  man  is  at  once 
coward  and  hero  ;  at  once  faithful  and  treasonable  ; 
at  once  brute  and  angel  ;  at  once  a  devil  and  a  god. 

Thus  the  great  central  problem  of  human  life  is 
this  :  How  to  reconcile  these  inborn  contradictions. 
And  it  is  just  the  divine  instinct  of  reason  within  him 
— the  essential,  unifying  element  in  his  nature  as  a 
thinking  being,  due  to  his  descent  from  the  primal 
Mind — this  it  is  which  makes  certain  the  arising  of 
that  problem  in  his  consciousness  and  also  prompts 
him  irresistibly  to  efforts  toward  its  solution.  It  is 
the  problem  of  the  Education  of  man.  To  unify 
and  reconcile  these  innate  contradictory  tendencies, 
and  in  unifying  them  to  transfigure  the  lower  by 
bringing  them  into  full  subordination  to  the  higher 
— that  is  the  central  task  of  civilization  and  the  cen- 
tral purpose  in  human  history. 

It  is  due  to  the  workings  of  the  divine  instinct  of 
reason  within  man  that  man  came  at  first,  and  comes 
forever,  to  recognize  the  workings  of  Divinity  in  the 
great  world  beyond  man.  It  is  through  this  instinct 
that  man  has  ever  discerned,  however  dimly,  the  one- 
ness of  the  human  with  the  divine  nature.  But  because 
at  first  reason  was  only  an  instinct  in  man  and,  from  its 
subtle,  highly  complex  character,  could  not  be  other- 


CHRISTIAN   ETHICS.  377 

wise  than  slow  in  developing  into  clearness  and  ade- 
quacy of  positive  power  as  reason,  man  could  only 
grope  and  guess  in  his  earlier  efforts  to  find  solution 
of  this  great  central  problem  of  his  own  existence. 

Meanwhile  imagination,  as  the  simpler  mode  of 
mind,  grew  into  relative  maturity  and  thus  proved  to 
be  that  productive  mode  ot  mind  through  which  for 
the  time  man  could  best  satisfy  the  instinctive  de- 
mand of  his  rudimentary  reason  for  some  expression 
of  his  conviction  that  the  powers  superior  to  men  are 
still  like  men.  Thus  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  was 
but  inevitable  that  the  gods  should  be  imaged  and 
that  they  should  be  imaged  in  the  form  of  men.  The 
divine  instinct  of  reason  in  man  could  not  fail  to  as- 
sume that  the  highest  image  of  the  gods  must  ever  be 
the  human  form.^ 

Thus  in  the  phantasy  of  primitive  man  the  divine 
world  came  to  be  a  copy  of  the  human  world.  Nat- 
ural elements  were,  indeed,  intermingled  ;  but  the 
human  aspect  never  failed  to  be  predominant.  The 
natural  elements  tended  to  confuse  the  human,  and 
did  in  greater  or  less  degree  give  rise  to  a  confused 
estimate  of  Personality.     On  the  other  hand  the  sense 


'Xenopbanes  (or  whoever  else),  in  saying  that  if  lions  had 
been  sculptors  they  would  have  represented  the  gods  in  the 
likeness  of  lions,  failed  to  notice  that  only  thinking  beings 
could  be  sculptors,  and  that  thus  if  lions  had  been  sculptors 
they  would  have  been  more  than  lions — they  would  have 
been  thinking  beings  ;  i.  e.,  men. 


378  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

of  personality  could  not  be   altogether  obscured    or 
turned  aside. 

Nevertheless,  just  as  the  endlessly  manifold  in- 
stinctive tendencies  in  man  remained  for  ages, 
throughout  the  lives  of  all  individuals,  mainly  an  un- 
reconciled multiplicity  ;^  so,  in  the  earlier  representa- 
tions which  were  made  of  the  divine  world  multi- 
plicity and  contradictoriness  of  powers  were  taken  as  a 
matter  of  course  and  v\ithout  so  much  as  a  suspicion 
that  such  representation  itself  was  at  all  contradictory. 
There  were  political  gods,  and  gods  of  commerce, 
and  domestic  gods  ;  gods  of  refinement  and  gods  of 
ferocity,  gods  of  truth  and  gods  of  falsehood,  gods 
pure  and  gods  impure. 

Such  confusions  in  the  represented  divine  world 
did,  indeed,  bat  reflect  confusions  in  the  actual  hu- 
man consciousness.  Yet  such  was  the  only  divine 
world  known  to  man.  And  so  long  as  men's  wor- 
ship was  addressed  to  such  divinities — divinities  mu- 
tually antagonistic  and  even  essentially  capricious — 
religion  could  afford  no  real  ground  of  certitude  and 
could  therefore  be  no  other  than  a  Religioji  of  Fear. 

It  follows  also  that  so  long  as  the  world  of  the 
higher  powers  appears  to  man  as  a  world  of  caprice, 
there  could  be  no  definite  standard  uf  moral  obliga- 
tion, and  the  Ethics  of  each  tribe  and  even   of   each 


'And  such  must   ever  be  the   case  iu  the  earlier  years  of 
each  individual. 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICvS.  379 

individual  would  be  always  variable  and  at  any  mo- 
ment be  high  or  low  according  to  the  character  of  the 
god  who  chanced  to  be  the  immediate  object  of 
worship. 

II. 

But  also  it  could  not  fail  that  the  divine  instinct  of 
reason  in  man  should  at  length  rise  in  revolt  against 
such  self-coatradictory  representation  of  the  divine 
world.  For  though  this  ideal  representation  was 
really  modeled  upon  the  actually  existing  human 
world,  yet  in  the  immediate  consciousness  of  men  the 
existing  human  world  seemed  rather  a  reflection  of 
the  ideally  represented  divine  world.  And  because 
the  divine  instinct  of  reason  worked  most  effectually 
in  the  minds  of  some — who  by  that  fact  were  the  "best" 
minds  of  the  race — and  because  the  accepted  ideal  rep- 
resentations of  the  divine  world  were  due  to  just  these 
minds,  it  did  come  about  that  the  actual  human 
world,  which  at  first  served  as  stimulus  toward  those 
representations,  was  more  and  more  reconstituted  with 
the  view  of  bringing  it  into  more  complete  conformity 
with  the  ideal  divine  world.  Though  the  gods  were 
formed  in  the  likeness  of  men,  yet  men  never  so  much 
as  dreamed  that  this  was  the  way  the  gods  had  come 
to  be.  The  god  in  man  saw  God  beyond  man  with  so 
clear  and  transfiguring  an  intuition  as  to  leave  no 
room  for  doubt  as  to  the    reality  and   boundless   su- 


380  ,      CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

periority  of  the  divine  world.  To  man  the  gods  were 
real*  and  the  will  of  the  gods  must  be  the  true  law  of 
the  life  of  man  who  dimly  felt  himself  to  bear  the 
likeness  of  sonship  to  one  or  another  of  the  far-off 
gods. 

,  Nevertheless  the  more  earnestly  men  sought  to 
make  real  the  will  of  the  gods  in  the  lives  of  men  the 
more  must  the  divine  instinct  of  reason  in  the  human 
soul  be  shocked  into  questioning  mood  concerning 
the  gods  through  the  contradictions  unfolding  in  ac- 
tual human  life  ;  for  human  life  itself  is  just  the  at- 
tempt to  realize  the  mutually  contradictory  wills  of 
the  many  gods.  Where  is  the  limit  of  the  one  god's 
province?  Where  the  limit  of  the  province  of 
another  ?  The  divine  world — ought  not  that  to  be  a 
world  of  harmony  ?  The  gods  must  meet  in  council, 
then.  But  who  knows  the  decisions  of  the  councils 
of  the  gods  ?  Who  knows  what  the  divine  Will  is? 
There  must  be  a  chief  god,  to  whose  will  the  wills  of 
the  other  gods  are  at  last  subordinate.  But  a  god 
subordinated — is  that  a  god  at  all  ? 

Thus,  step  by  step,  men  could  not  but  be  led  to  feel 
the  contradictoriness  of  that  ideal  representation  of 
the  divine  world  in  which  that  world  appeared  as 
consisting  in  a  multiplicity  of  gods,  and  to  see  at 
length  that  somehow  the  world  must  be  swayed  b}-  a 
single,  resistless  Might.  Toward  this  goal  all  primi- 
tive religions  have  manifested  an  inherent  tendency. 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  381 

It  was  the  Greeks,  with  their  fine  native  sense  of 
Beauty,  so  finely  cultivated,  in  whose  religion  the 
sense  of  the  necessity  of  unison,  of  self-consistency 
within  the  world  of  the  gods,  grew  into  that  beautiful 
image  of  the  Republic  of  the  gods  with  Zeus  at  the 
head  and  Destiny  over  all,  uniting  all  into  One  ; 
though  this  One  was  still  only  an  imaged  One  whose 
unity  was  at  best  external,  and  which  thus  possessed 
no  power  really  to  renovate  the  human  world.  In  fact, 
with  the  Greeks  as  a  race, religious  interpretation  always 
assumed  the  art  form,  and  within  this  form  sculpture 
determined  the  character  of  all.  It  is  the  plastic 
form  in  which  the  outward  shape  must  be  absolutely 
clear  and  exact  in  definition.  It  presupposes  a  mul- 
tiplicity of  gods  and  necessarily  dissolves  and 
vanishes  with  the  development  of  consciousness  that 
there  are  no  gods,  but  only  God.  It  grew  in  might 
through  contemplation  of  the  gods.  It  could  not  see 
God  and  live.  It  was  in  this  form  of  religious  inter- 
pretation, too,  that  the  Greek  genius  as  such  ex- 
hausted itself.  And  doubtless  the  conquest  of  Greece 
by  Rome  deprived  the  world  of  nothing  in  possession 
of  which  the  world  would  have  been  the  better. 

It  was  another  race  that  first  broke  quite  away  from 
definite  imagery  as  direct  representation  of  the  divine 
w^orld,  and  thus  came  to  behold  the  world  as  subject 
to  one  measureless,  resistless  Power.  To  the  Semitic 
race,  indeed,  the  art  form  of  religious   representation 


382  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

never  developed  beyond  the  rudimentary  stage.  It 
was  the  present  living  God  who  appeared  to  them  in 
the  storm-cloud  and  in  the  lightning,  and  whose 
voice  was  the  thunder,  though  also  God  was  in  the 
"still  small  voice"  of  the  inner  conscience  or  divine 
instinct  of  man  himself  ;  and  this  sufficed.  And  so 
far  as  the  art-instinct  of  this  race  developed  in  the 
form  of  poetry  as  giving  definition  to  religious  senti" 
ment,  the  poetry  was  still  pictorial,  discriptive, 
though  descriptive  of  the  might  and  the  goodness  of 
Divinity  in  the  world  beyond  man,  or  of  the  yearn- 
ings within  the  soul  of  man  toward  God. 

Such  was  the  case  with  the  Hebrews,  and  this  clew 
led  up  to  the  unfolding  of  a  still  more  adequate  and 
clearly  defined  conception  of  God  and  of  man's  rela- 
tion to  God  as  the  one  perfect  Mind.  We  have  now 
to  notice  the  most  conspicuous  example  of  the  tran- 
sition form  of  faith  between  the  earlier  polytheistic 
rel  gions  and  this  modern  and  highest  monotheistic 
view.  This  example  of  the  intermediate  degrees  of 
the  religious  consciousness  presents  itself  in  the  form 
of  the  Mohammedan  religion,  which  is  essentially  the 
highest  term  of  the  spontaneous  native  Arabian  faith. 

(True,  this  religion  assumed  positive  form  at  a  rela- 
tively late  period  in  history,  and  was  the  outgrowth 
of  the  spirit  of  a  people  practically  isolated  from  the 
other  peoples  of  the  world.  It  was  the  religion  itself 
in    its  fully    developed  character    that    brought   the 


CHRISTIAN   ETHICS.  383 

Arabs  into  actual  relation  with  other  peoples  and  thus 
introduced  them  upon  the  stage  of  the  world's  history. 
On  the  other  hand  their  earlier  religion  was  poly- 
theistic and  gradually  became  merged  into  precisely 
that  form  of  monotheism  which  serves  as  the  best,  be- 
cause simplest,  logical  example  of  the  transition  stage 
in  the  development  of  religious  consciousness.  Of 
course  Mohammedanism  no  more  grew  out  of  the 
Greek  laith  than  the  Christian  faith  has  developed 
from  the  Mohammedan.  And  yet,  what  specially 
characterized  the  Greek  faith  and  is  most  conspic- 
uously unfolded  in  that  faith — viz.,  its  polytheism  — 
was  in  essence  the  same  with  the  earlier  Arabian 
faith  ;  just  as  what  specially  characterizes  and  is  most 
conspicuously  unfolded  in  Mohammedanism — viz., 
its  monotheism — is  the  central  element  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Christianity  presents  itself  as  an  enriched 
monotheism  which  has  its  root  in  the  abstract  mon- 
otheism of  the  Hebrew  faith  ;  and  this  in  turn  is  the 
direct  resultant  of  a  struggle,  centuries  long,  through 
which  that  devoted  people  clarified  its  own  conscious- 
ness and  freed  itself  from  the  contradictions  of  what 
was  at  fiist  a  crude  polytheistic  religion.  It  is  only 
to  bring  into  sharper  contrast  the  fundamental  stages 
of  this  evolutionary  process  that  the  Greek  religion  is 
taken  as  a  conspicuous  example  of  polytheism  on  the 
one  hand,  and  that  Mohammedanism  is  selected  as 


384  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

the  most  conspicuous  example  of  strict  abstract  mon- 
otheism on  the  other). 

After  this  explanatory  note  we  may  proceed  to  in- 
dicate the  characteristic  limitations  of  the  latter  type 
of  faith  as  furnishing  a  basis  for  ethical  doctrine. 

And  the  first  thing  we  have  to  notice  is  the  fact 
that  this  type  of  religion  has  always  developed  with 
a  people  who  have  not  as  yet  advanced  beyond  the 
stage  of  the  "abstract  understanding."  They  view 
the  events  of  the  world  more  or  less  distinctly  under  the 
form  of  cause  and  effect.  But  as  yet  they  are  unable  to 
seize  the  causal  relation  otherwise  than  externally. 
The  cause  is  something  by  itself  and  quite  apart  from 
the  effect,  which  likewise  exists  for  itself  and  quite 
apart  from  the  cause.  So  also  with  them  the  process 
of  causation  can  actually  take  place  only  in  time,  the 
cause  appearing  first  and  the  effect  after.  If  God  is 
the  cause  of  the  existence  of  the  world,  then  God 
must  first  have  existed  by  himself  and  must  after- 
ward have  brought  the  world  into  existence  ;  though 
now  the  world,  having  been  brought  into  existence, 
no  longer  requires  the  activity  of  the  creative  Po\\'er 
and  hence  exists  as  something  over  against  that 
Power. 

But  also  that  Power  created  the  world  as  he  chose. 
By  an  act  of  the  same  power  the  Creator  could  anni- 
hilate the  world.  Doubtless  in  his  own  good  time  he 
will  do  so  and  create  another  world  as  he  may  then 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  385 

choose.  His  ways  are  not  man's  ways  and  are  past 
man's  finding  out.  The  divine  instinct  of  reason  in 
man  bows  before  such  Power  in  a  worship  which  con- 
sists of  absolute  submission  and  self-surrender  as  rea- 
son. The  ruling  Power  of  the  world  is  conceived  as 
an  arbitrary  Will  which  wills  what  it  will,  and  which 
therefore  no  reason  can  hope  ever  to  fathom.  The 
world,  including  man,  is  precisely  what  Allah  wills 
it  to  be.  If  it  should  prove  different  to-morrow,  it 
will  be  because  Allah  would  have  the  difference 
arise.  No  one  knows  the  will  of  Allah,  or  can  know, 
save  he  to  whom  Allah  wills  to  reveal  his  will.  It  is 
even  futile  and  irreverent  to  seek  to  know. 

It  is  precisely  this  fatalistic  attitude  of  mind,  which 
has  so  often  and  in  such  various  forms  been  manifest 
in  the  history  of  the  race,  and  to  which  Goethe  gave 
utterance  in  the  following  lines  : 

"The  highest  might 
Of  science  quite 

Is  from  the  world  concealed  ! 
But  whosoe'er 
Expends  no  care 

To  him  it  is  revealed."^ 


^The  English  is  by  C.  Kegan  Paul.     The  German  is  as  fol-' 
lows  : 

Die  hohe  Kraft 
Der  Wissenschaft, 
Der  ganzen  Welt  verborgen  ! 
Und  wer  nicht  denkt, 
Dem  wird  sie  geschenkt, 
Er  hat  sie  ohne  sorgen. 
Mr.  F.  H.  Bradley  makes  good   use   of   this   quotation    as 


386  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  logically  such  faith 
condemns  all  research  and  renders  science  wholly  im- 
possible. And  if  individual  Mohammedans  have 
nevertheless  dealt  in  science  and  more  or  less  con- 
tributed to  science,  it  is  because  the  divine  instinct 
of  reason  was  so  exceptionally  strong  within  them 
as  to  cause  them  to  bid  defiance  to  the  necessary  im- 
plications of  their  faith. 

But  also — and  this  is  what  specially  interests  us 
here — in  forbidding  science  and  rendering  revelation 
altogether  arbitrary  such  abstract  monotheism  hope- 


against  Hedonism,  which  is  only  another  reason-paralyzing 
form  of  fatalism.  See  his  essay:  "Pleasure  for  Pleasure's 
Sake."     Ethical  Studies^  p.  80. 

Meanwhile  the  special  connection  in  which  Goethe  intro- 
duces the  lines  above  qucted  is  not  without  its  hint.  The 
scene  is  that  of  the  "Witch's  Kitchen."  After  wild  banterings 
between  Mephistopheles  and  the  witches,  the  former  calls 
for  wine,  which  is  really  to  be  a  potion  working  the  trans- 
formation of  Faust.  The  witches  make  extravagantly  cere- 
monious preparation,  including  a  reading  from  a  huge 
volume.  First  in  which  there  is  a  pretense  of  mystic  num- 
bers, ending  with  : 

"And  nine  is  one, 
And  ten  is  none. 
That  is  the  witches  one-times-one." 

With  all  which  mummery  Faust  is  greatly  disgusted.  On 
the  other  hand  Mephistopheles  is  charmed,  and  in  mock 
solemnity  assures  Faust  that  a  "perfect  contradiction  still  is 
mystery-crammed  for  wise  and  fools  alike;"  adding  that  "for 
the  most  part  when  men  hear  but  words  they  believe  there 
must  be  somewhat  in  them  to  stir  up  thought."  Upon 
which  the  witch  reads  on  as  above  :  "The  highest  might," 
etc.  That  is,  Goethe,  in  these  words,  quotes  what  he  deems 
the  sentiment  of  bedlam.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  the  witch's 
multiplication  table,  and  as  such  would  seem  well  worth 
considering  by  those  who  fancy  that  the  incomprehensible, 
the  unutterable,  the  Unknowable,  is  so  far  superior  to  defi- 
nite, explicitly  unfolded  thought. 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  387 

lessly  obscures  the  standard  of  right  doing  and  opens 
the  way  to  the  grossest  license  in  point  of  conduct. 
For  in  all  his  deeds,  whether  of  tender  kindliness  and 
noble  purity  or  of  brutal  cruelty  and  brutish  licen- 
tiousness the  individual  Mohammedan  devoutly  be- 
lieves himself  to  be  but  the  instrument  of  Allah's 
Will  and  can  therefore  neither  esteem  himself  for  his 
worthy  deeds  nor  condemn  himself  for  deeds  un- 
worthy. 

Such  faith,  indeed,  cannot  pause  with  conceiving 
all  inferior  gods  as  merged  and  cancelled  in  the  might 
of  one  resistless  Will  ;  it  is  also  driven  onward  to  the 
point  of  regarding  man  himself  as  nothing  else  than 
simple  medium  of  one  Will  in  whose  presence  all  are 
as  nothing.  And  thus  the  clew  to  the  fundamental 
identity  as  between  the  divine  nature  and  the  nature 
of  man  which  appeared  in  polytheism  seems  hope- 
lessly lost  in  the  abstract  monotheism  which  merges 
all  reality  in  the  one  measureless  Might  and  so  leaves 
no  room  whatever  for  the  unfolding  of  human  per- 
sonality. 

And  this,  too,  involves  a  corresponding  reduc- 
tion in  the  estimate  put  upon  the  dignity  of  man,  in- 
cluding the  moral  quality  of  human  character.  In 
fact  the  ethics  of  Mohammedanism  is  lower  in  its  de- 
mands upon  the  votaries  of  that  faith  than  was  the 
ethics  of  the  religion  of  Apollo  in  its  demands   upon 


388  CHRISTIAN   ETHICS. 

the  Greeks.  The  Turk  of  to- day  is  but  the  practical 
exemplification  of  the  empty  ethics  involved  in  the 
all-annulling  faith  of  a  simple,  undifferentiated  mon- 
otheism. Self  regulated  ambition — above  all,  ambi- 
tion toward  sustained  intellectual  and  moral  self- 
unfolding  and  refinement — must  forever  remain  im- 
possible to  the  actual  votary  of  such  faith.  He  acts 
only  from  impulse.  All  his  impulses  are  alike  divine 
to  him.  Hence  he  neither  acquires  nor  seeks  to 
acquire  the  subtler,  nobler  qualities  of  mind  which 
constitute  the  tendencies  to  worthier  forms  of  action. 
Rather,  all  his  impulses  remain  of  the  coarser  sort 
and  become  more  brutal  through  unrestrained  indul- 
gence. 

To  which,  as  we  must  again  remind  ourselves, 
there  are  doubtless  many  individual  exceptions.  But, 
as  we  must  also  repeat,  this  is  only  because  the  primal 
divine  instinct  of  reason  is  strong  enough  in  such 
cases  to  annul  the  actual  tendencies  which  the  faith 
itself  necessarily  involves. 

lyOgically,  the  Mohammedan — that  is,  the  votary 
of  any  abstract  monotheistic  faith — can  onl}^  renounce 
his  reason^  and  submit  himself  unresistingly  to  the 
one  absolute  Will  as  the  mere  instrument  of  that 
Will.  Such  religion  can  be  nothing  else  than  on  one 
side  the  Religion  of  Fate,  and  on  the  other  side   the 


'Cp.  Above,  pp.  189  and  211. 


CHRISTIAN    KTHICS.  389 

Religion  of  Resignation^  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
which  is  to  empty  ethics  of  all  positive  import.  And 
if  the  votaries  of  modern  monistic  doctrines  in  Europe 
and  America  are  in  practice  immeasurably  superior 
to  the  crude  ethics  which  in  strict  consistency  must 
follow  from  such  rudimentary  forms  of  faith  it  is  be- 
cause they  owe  their  education  and  entire  nurture  to 
a  race  whose  whole  spiritual  life  is  the  expression, 
the  concrete  outer  form,  of  an  infinitely  richer  degree 
of  the  religious  tendencies  inherent  in  the  human 
soul. 

III. 

To  indicate  the  central  characteristics  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  as  itself  presenting  in  concrete  form  this 
richer  degree  of  the  religious  and  ethical  tendencies 
of  the  human  soul  is  the  direct  purpose  of  the  remain- 
ing portion  of  the  present  essay. 

And  first  we  have  to  notice  that  the  fundamental 
conception  of  Christianity  is  that  the  world — i.  e., 
the  universe — is  nothing  else  than  the  outward  mani- 
festation of  one  eternal,  infinite,  absolute  Personality. 
In  this  it  is  contrasted  with  all  the  polytheistic  reli- 
gions, the  fundamental  conception  of  which  is  that  of 
a  multiplicity  of  divinities,  which  are  personal,  in- 
deed, but  each  of  which  had  a  beginning  in  time  and 
is  limited  in  space  and  in  power;  no  one  of  which, 
therefore,  is  eternal,  infinite  and  absolute. 


390  CHRISTIAN    ETHICvS. 

Again,  Christianity  is  contrasted  with  all  simply 
monistic  faitlis  in  that,  as  we  have  seen,  all  such 
faiths  are  logically  bound  to  deny  to  the  ultimate, 
supreme  Power  the  personal  characteristics  of  actual 
intellectual  self-consciousness  as  well  as  that  of  feel- 
ing, especially  feeling  in  the  form  of  personal  sym- 
pathy. For  such  faiths  the  ultimate  Power  is  the 
incomprehensible,  the  inscrutable,  the  Unknowable. 
And  it  can  be  so  only  because  it  is  something  foreign 
to  mind.  Nor  must  we  overlook  a  further  logical 
consequence,  viz.,  that  of  regarding  the  human  mind 
as  having  merely  phenomenal  existence — existence, 
i.  e. ,  only  as  phenomenon — and  as  therefore  possess- 
ing no  truly  individual  and  abiding  life,  but  rather 
as  being  destined  to  dissolve  and  perish. 

In  its  inception,  indeed,  Christianity  unquestion- 
ably presented  its  peculiar  view  of  the  world  in  picto- 
rial rather  than  in  reflective  form.  But  in  doing  so 
it  fixed  upon  a  form  tor  the  expression  of  its  funda- 
mental conception  which  involved  in  itself  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  unity  and  even  the  identity  in 
nature  of  the  worshiper  and  the  object  of  his  worship. 

Nor  was  this  without  actual  genetic  relation  with 
the  past.  Hovering  vaguely,  but  with  ever-increas- 
ing insistance,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  was  the  conception  of  Jahveh,  their  God,  as 
deliverer,  as  redeemer  of  his  people.  And  this  de- 
liverance came  more  and   more  to  be    conceived    as 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  391 

inner  and  spiritual  in  nature.  The  true  worshiper  of 
Jahveh  was  to  be  delivered  from  his  sins — even  from 
his  inner  tendencies  to  wrong-doing — not  merely  from 
the  outward  consequences  of  his  sins. 

It  was  this  vague  but  always  deepening  premonition  > 
constituting  the  true  ethical  core  of  the  Religion  of 
Israel,  upon  which  the  Founder  of  Christianity  seized 
as  being  all-essential  and  which  he  interpreted  into 
universal  form.  And  the  figurative  form  which 
above  all  others  he  chose  as  best  serving  to  set  forth 
with  richest  suggestiveness  this  relationship  between 
Divinity  and  Humanity  was  that  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  Sonship  of  Man.  He  felt  the  eternal 
godhood  within  himself,  and  accordingly  declared  : 
'*I  and  my  Father  are  one;"  and  also:  ''Before 
Abraham  was  I  am."  The  man  Jesus,  the  "histori- 
cal Christ,"  the  Christ  of  time,  felt  within  himself 
the  universal,  eternal  Christ.  He  also  beheld  the 
same  eternal  godhood,  the  same  universal,  eternal 
Christ,  in  his  followers — in  those  of  like  mind  with 
himself — and  accordingly  he  said  to  them  :  "After 
this  manner,  therefore,  pray  jj/^  :   '  6>^^r  Father,      .     ." 

Divine  Fatherhood  necessarily  implies  divine  Son- 
ship.  And  this  again  was  directly  interpreted  into 
full  measure  of  explicit  meaning.  "God  is  a  Spirit," 
— a  Mind,  a  thoroughly  self-conscious  being — "and 
they  who  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and 
in  truth," — with  honest  intent  and  self-regulated  will. 


392  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

God  is  Mind.  Man  is  mind.  And  true  worship  con- 
sists in  that  divine-human  activity  which  brings  the 
worshiper  as  mind,  as  spirit,  into  ever-increasing  de- 
gree of  practical  adjustment  on  his  part  to  the  eternal 
Type  of  Mind  as  once  for  all  perfectly,  and  therefore 
changelessly,  realized  in  the  one  eternal  Person. 

And  here  we  come  upon  the  imaginar>^  difficulty  of 
an  "infinite  Personality."  Literally  imaginary.  For 
it  is  due  solely  to  the  mistake  of  attempting  to  do 
through  the  power  of  the  imagination  what  can  really 
be  done  only  through  the  power  of  thought.  It  is 
not  the  body  that  constitutes'the  personality  of  man. 
Man  as  miiid — that  is  the  real  person.  And  the  less 
adequately  developed  he  is  as  person — as  mind — the 
less  complex  must  be  the  bodily  form  in  which  he 
expresses  himself  as  person  ;  and  conversely  the  more 
adequately  developed  the  individual  mind  as  real 
personal  nature,  the  more  complex  must  be  its  out- 
ward embodiment.  The  mere  physical  organism  of 
man  is  by  no  means  man's  whole  embodiment.  Every 
implement,  from  pruning-hook  to  printing-press,  from 
battle-flag  to  Bible,  all  are  but  further  embodiments 
of  man  as  mind,  as  person.  Extend  the  conception 
of  Personality  to  its  ultimate  degree  of  infinitude,  and 
nothing  less  than  infinite  extension  filled  with  infinite- 
ly manifold  forms  of  infinitely  multifarious  charac- 
teristics can  be  conceived  as  sufficient  for  its  em- 
bodiment.    Onl}^  an   actual    polytheist  can  conceive 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS,  393 

divinity  as  finding  its  adequate  expression  in  a  single 
form,  whether  the  form  be  that  of  cloud,  or  of  river, 
or  of  tree,  or  of  serpent,  or  of  man. 

But  thus  if  the  whole  material  universe  is  to  be 
conceived  as  simply  the  utterance — the  simple,  literal 
self-expression  or  self-manifestation  of  Divinity  as  in- 
finite Person — as  absolute  Mind — then  it  follows  that 
to  mind  the  universe  presents  no  mystery  wholly  in- 
soluble by  mind.  Nay,  in  such  religion,  worship  it- 
self, as  was  but  just  now  said,  consists  precisely  in  that 
divine-human  activity  which  brings  the  worshiper  as 
mind  into  ever-increasing  degree  of  practical  adjust- 
ment on  his  part  to  the  eternal  Type  of  Mind  as  once 
for  all  perfectly,  and  therefore  changelessly,  realized 
in  the  eternal  Person.  And  this  self-adjustment  of 
the  individual,  created  mind  to  the  eternal,  absolute 
Mind,  necessarily  implies  its  never-ending  growth  in 
power  to  intellectually  comprehend  the  eternal  Per- 
son in  his  modes  of  self-manifestation  in  and  through 
the  forms  and  forces  constituting  the  infinitely  ex- 
tended Universe  as  well  as  in  and  through  the  work- 
ings of  the  mind  itself  in  its  own  non-extended  modes. 

Thus  to  the  Christian  Faith,  in  its  fundamental 
character,  there  is  nothing  that  is  ultimately  incom- 
prehensible or  wholly  inscrutable,  no  hopeless  back- 
ground consisting  in  a  phantasmal,  mystery-crammed 
"Unknowable."  On  the  contrary  in  its  essence  the 
Christian  religion  assumes  the  actual  world  to  be  the 


394  CHRISTIAN   KTHICS. 

product  of  Mind  and  therefore  wholly  knowable  by 
mind.     So  far,  therefore,  from  forbidding  science,  or 
discouraging  science,  this  religion  logically  demands 
the  fullest  development  of  science.    And  if  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  in  one  or  another  form,  has  seemed  from 
time  to  time  to  discourage,  and  even  actually  to  stand 
menacingly  in  the  way  of,  science  ;  this  is  only  be- 
cause  the    fear   of   polytheism  on  the  one   side  has 
driven  those  in  authority — those  therefore   who   felt 
the  deepest  sense  of  responsibility — to   interpret   the 
spirit  of  Christianity  in  the  narrow  monistic  sense  on 
the  other  side  and  thus  to  establish  an  "orthodoxy "^ 
from  which  all  movement,  all  life  was  excluded,  and 
which  thus  turned  out   to  be  itself  a  deadly   heresy 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  central,  vital  doctrine  of 
the  true  Christian  Religion.     And  it  is  just  because 
the  Christian  Religion  has   always  in   the   outcome 
triumphed  over  the  Christian  Church,  just   because 
the  inner  vital  Spirit  has  actually,  though  only  little 
by  little,  moulded  the  outer  form  into   the   growing 
Spirit's  appropriate  organism  instead  of  allowing  it  to 
harden  into  a  rigid,  changeless,  external  form  consti- 
tuting a  fatal  restriction  upon  the  further   unfolding 
of  the  spiritual  life — it  is  just  because  of  this  that 
Christianity  has  come  to  be  adopted  by  those  races 
which  are  most  active  and  progressive  intellectually 
and  morally,  and  adopted  as  just  that  religion  which 
not  only  best  satisfies  their  immediate  spiritual  needs^ 


CHRISTIAN  p:thics.  395 

but  which  also  in  that  fact,  best  serves  to  stimulate 
them  to  still  further  effort  toward,  genuine  spiritual 
development. 

'  But  thus  it  is  evident  that  in  the  Christian  Religion, 
rightly  interpreted,  Science  and  Revelation  are'  but 
complementary  terms.  Science  is  the  self-definition 
of  the  human  mind  as  intelligence  with  reference  to 
the  modes  of  self-manifestation  on  the  part  of  the 
divine  Mind.  Revelation  is  just  this  self-manifesta- 
tion of  the  divine  Mind  as  absolute  Person  to  the  hu- 
man mind  as  progressively  unfolding  Person,  It  is 
divine  stimulation  leading  to  normal  self-activity  on 
the  part  of  man,  the  end.  whereof  is  man's  own  self- 
realization.  Nor  can  this  be  conceived — i.  e.,  really 
thought — save  as  a  wholly  rational  process.  In 
other  words,  in  accordance  with  the  central  concep- 
tion of  the  Christian  Faith,  Revelation  can  have  real 
meaning  only  as  the  normal  interrelation  between  the 
divine  Intelligence  and  individual  human  intelli- 
gence. The  Christian  Religion  involves  the  serene 
assurance  that  the  World — that  is,  the  Universe — as 
the  expression  of  the  absolute,  divine  Mind,  is  ra- 
tional through  and  through,  and  thus  necessarily  im- 
plies the  endless  progressive  development  of  indi- 
vidual man  as  a  rational  being  capable  of  progres- 
sively comprehending  thewhole  . 

Thus  the  attempt  to  comprehend  the  World  and  to 
account   for  the  origin  of  man  in  strictly  scientific 


396  CHRISTIAN   ETHICS. 

fashion — an  attempt  leading  in  modern  times  to  such 
magnificent  results — is  by  no  means  in  conflict  with, 
but  rather  is  it  wholly  in  the  true  spirit  of,  the  Chris- 
tian Religion.  It  is  precisely  this  religion,  and  this 
alone,  that  gives  the  real  clew  to  and  also  unequivo- 
cally affirms  the  infinite  worth  and  destiny  of  man. 
And  modern  science  confirms  this  affirmation  in  the 
very  fact  of  the  splendid  achievements  crowning  the 
efforts  of  man  as  mind  to  comprehend  the  world  in  its 
total  compass.  The  total  conception  of  the  evolution 
of  man  is  but  the  obverse  aspect  of  the  total  concep- 
tion of  the  self-unfolding  of  God. 

It  is,  indeed,  as  already  pointed  out,  only  through 
such  evolutional  process  that  man,  even  in  his 
physiological  character,  can  really  be  thought  as 
arising,  however  easily  one  may  imagine  him  to  have 
arisen  in  some  other  way. 

But  in  this  very  process,  let  us  repeat,  purpose  is 
clearly  manifest  throughout,  binding  the  whole  pro- 
cess into  one  and  showing  it  to  be,  what  the  Christian 
Religion  has  in  truth  always  insisted,  simply  the  ex- 
pression of  one  conscious,  creative  Power  knowing 
the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  unswervingly  work- 
ing from  the  beginning,  throughout  the  process,  to 
the  end.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  just  this  primordial 
factor  of  a  conscious,  purposing,  creative  Power 
which,  in  its  haste,  the  current  evolutional  theory  al- 
together ignores,  or  else,  in  its  false  modesty,  simply 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  397 

consigns  to  the  limbo  of  the  Unknowable.  For 
which  reason  the  evolution  theory,  as  currently  ad- 
vocated, falls  to  pieces  of  its  own  weight  as  refusing 
to  allow  for  any  really  original,  initiative,  organically 
self-unfolding  Power,  excluding  which  the  process  it- 
self becomes  wholly  unthinkable." 

Besides,  as  mind,  man  is  himself  a  conscious,  self- 
defining,  self-unfolding  power  including  original, 
initiative  impulse.  And  nothing  could  be  more  il- 
logical than  the  attempt  to  derive  a  being  of  such 
character  from  elements  in  which  that  character  is 
conspicuously  lacking  and  through  a  process  from 
which  that  character  is  wholly  excluded.  In  fact, 
Darwin  himself  everywhere  assumes  the  teleological 
principle,  though  his  teleology  is  that  of  the  agnostic 
who,  while  recognizing  purpose  in  the  forms  and 
forces  of  nature,  is  so  modest  as  not  to  lift  his  eyes 
sufiiciently  to  see  the  great  purposing  Power  without 
which  the  "purposiveness"  of  nature  is  too  far  re- 
moved from  anything  substantial  even  to  deserve  being 
described  as  "shadowy." 

On  the  other  hand,  let  this  great  purposing  Power 


^There  is  something  really  pathetic  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
solemn  adoption  of  the  term  "persistence,"  in  place  of  the 
term,  "conservation,"  (of  "Force")  as  a  means  of  getting 
rid  of  any  shadow  of  suggestion  of  a  "conserver" — as  if  per- 
sistence, in  its  last  analysis,  must  not  prove  to  be  essen- 
tially nothing  else  than  infinite,  self-directed  self-conser- 
vation, (Cf.  foot-note  to  heading  of  Chapter  II,  Part  II,  of 
his  First  Principles  of  Philosophy.     N.  Y.  Kd.  p.  185). 


398  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

be  once  frankly  recognized  in  its  character  of  self- 
defining,  self-unfolding  Energy  or  primal,  creative 
Mind,  and  at  once  the  evolution  of  man  becomes 
comprehensible.  For  whatever  the  forms  and  what" 
ever  the  process  through  which  he  has  come  to  be,  in 
his  animal  nature,  the  primal  Cause  is  seen  to  be 
adequate  to  the  final  cause  or  end  of  his  being.  And 
at  the  same  time,  let  us  repeat,  it  is  clear  that  what- 
ever the  ancestry  through  which  he  may  be  said  to 
have  derived  his  special  qualities  of  mind  and  body, 
yet  it  is  from  his  primal  Ancestor,  the  eternal  Mind, 
that  he  has  derived  his  fundamental  nature  as  mind. 
Not  otherwise  than  upon  the  basis  of  divine  Ancestry 
can  the  descent  of  man  be  accounted  for  in  truly 
scientific  way.  Nor  can  too  great  emphasis  be  put 
upon  this  fundamental  truth.  And  thus  the  doctrine' 
of  the  divine  Sonship  as  applied  to  man  is  found,  on 
careful  reflection,  to  be  something  more  than  a  mere 
figure  of  speech.  Rather  in  its  essence  the  expression 
is  justified  by  the  strictest  scientific  analysis. 

We  say  that  man  is  the  creature  of  instinct,  of  in- 
herited tendencies.  And  it  is  so.  It  is  so  also,  as 
we  noticed  at  the  outset,  that  for  the  individual  his 
instincts  are  predetermined  qualities.  Hence  as  an 
instinctive  being  man  is,  as  was  noticed,  predestined. 
Nay,  as  inheriting  from  innumerable  divergent  lines* 
he  is  at  birth  predestined  to  endlessly  divergent  ac- 
tion.    That  is,  he  is  foredoomed  to  endless  self-con- 


CHRISTIAN    ETHICS.  399 

tradictiou.  He  is  predestined  to  sleep  and  to  wake 
physiologically.  He  is  equally  predestined  to  the 
sleep  of  psychical  indifference.  But  he  is  also  pre- 
destined to  the  waking  of  inquiry.  Predestined  to 
credulity  and  predestined  to  doubt.  Born  a  bundle  of 
contradictions.  Born  also  with  a  primal  unity  of  na- 
ture which  cannot  but  awake  sooner  or  later  in  the 
form  of  an  irrepressible  sense  of  the  necessity  of 
practically  unifying  the  multiform  contradictions  of 
his  rudimentary  existence  and  of  reconciling  its  in- 
herent contradictions. 

And  this  again  is  the  divine  instinct  of  reason 
within  him.  It  is,  in  truth,  the  secret  of  all  his  mar- 
velous premonitions— premonitions  leading  to  his 
ceaseless  struggle  toward  a  higher  stage  of  being.  It 
is  the  secret  of  his  inborn  sense  of  the  perfection  of 
Truth  and  of  Beauty  and  of  Goodness,  And  every 
tremor  of  dissatisfaction  with  what  now  is,  together 
with  its  complement  of  deepened  longing  for  richer 
degrees  of  life  is  but  a  further  stage  in  the  awaking 
of  the  God-consciousness  within  him. 

Man  is  the  Son  of  God  and  therefore  "thinks  it 
no  robbery  to  make  himself  equal  with  God.  *'  He  is 
heir  to  all  things  because  his  central  inheritance  is 
that  of  infinite  Personality.  And  as  this  is  true  of 
each  and  every  man,  then  with  the  primal  Person, 
and  with  every  man  who  has  clear  sense  of  the  full 
significance  of  divine  Personality,  there  can  in  the 


400  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

very  nature  of  the  case  be  "no  distinguishing  of  per- 
sons." Each  has  infinite  worth  and  should  show 
forth  infinite  dignity,  while  each  should  receive  from 
each  the  reverence  due  to  a  being  thus  divinely  con- 
stituted. Thus  all  are  equal,  for  all  have  the  same  di- 
vine Ancestry,  and  hence  the  same  divine  nature,  to 
fulfil  which  requires  endless  existence  on  the  part  of 
each  individual  member  of  the  race.  So  that,  as  we 
may  notice  by  the  way,  individual  immortality  is  of 
necessity  involved  in  this  conception  of  man. 

It  is  this,  too,  that  constitutes  the  true  basis  for  as- 
serting the  common  brotherhood  of  Man.  In  their 
very  nature  all  men  are  equal.  And  the  religion  that 
assumes  the  infinite  worth  of  each  and  every  human 
soul  could  not  consistently  do  otherwise  than  address 
each  with  the  solemn  warning  :  "Call  no  man 
master!"  for  in  so  doing  he  must  abdicate  his  own 
rank  as  citizen-king  in  the  Republic  of  God;  just  as, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  who  demands  to  be  called 
"master"  proves  by  that  fact  his  own  utter  ignorance 
of  true  Personality — that  central  characteristic  consti- 
tuting the  essential  significance  of  every  human  life, 
and  hence  necessarily  and  forever  condemning  alike 
the  despot  and  whoever  submits  to  despotism. 

Polytheism  reduces  the  gods  to  the  level  of  man. 
Christianity  lifts  man  as  man  to  a  divine  level  as 
showing  him  to  be  of  equal  nature  with  God.  And 
in  doing  so  it  presents  a  final  and  absolute    standard 


CHRISTIAN    KTHICS.  401 

of  Right.  That  standard  is  based  not  in  the  will  of 
one  or  another  of  a  multitude  of  capricious  divinities  ; 
nor  in  the  inscrutable  determinations  of  an  irresis- 
tible and  wholly  arbitrary  Power ;  but  in  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  Reason  itself.  In  such  religion  the  es- 
sential, central  claim  on  the  part  of  each  is  that  of 
fullest,  freest  conditions,  positive  and  negative,  tend- 
ing toward  his  own  self-realization  as  a  rational  or  di- 
vinely constituted  being.  And  because  this  is  an 
equal  right  on  the  part  of  each  as  toward  all  others 
it  necessarily  implies  an  equal  and  corresponding  ob- 
ligation on  the  part  of  each  toward  every  other  to  aid 
in  the  common  work  tending  toward  perfect  self- 
unfolding  on  the  part  of  all. 

Thus  in  proclaiming  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  de- 
scent of  man,  implying  the  essential  divinit}^  of  human 
nature,  Christianity  announces  the  typical  oneness  of 
the  race,  the  common  brotherhood  of  man,  and  also 
the  infinite  worth  and  dignity  of  each  individual 
member  of  the  race.  And  precisely  in  so  doing  it 
sets  forth  the  one  sufficient  ground  of  a  truly  rational 
and  vital  Ethics  as  pointing  to  self-realization  on  the 
part  of  man  as  a  rationally  constituted  being  through 
his  own  social-individual  self-discipline  and  self-ac- 
tivity. Thus  the  human  race  is  gathered  into,  or 
rather  it  is  recognized  as  normally  constituting,  one 
divine  Family.  And  the  principle  of  relationship 
within  the  Family  is  no  longer  that  of  fear,  no  longer 


402  CHRISTIAN    ETHICS. 

that  of  mere  resignation,  but  that  of  mutual  recog- 
nition, mutual  comprehension,  mutual  esteem.  In  a 
word  it  is  the  Religio7i  oj  love-  The  Christian  Re- 
ligion is  the  one  religion  of  the  world  having  for  its 
eare  the  principle  of  Personality  consciously  held  and 
adequatel}^  comprehended .  It  is  therefore  the  one  re- 
ligion of  the  world  which  from  its  very  nature  de- 
mands of  each  and  every  member  of  the  race  moral 
conduct  of  the  highest  order  and  upon  purely  rational 
grounds. 

Even  in  polytheistic  religions  the  divine  instinct  of 
reason  in  man  has  often  developed  the  sense  of  the 
divine  Sonship  of  man.^  But  for  the  most  part  in 
these  religions  this  foreshadowing  of  the  truth  as  to 
the  relationship  between  humanity  and  divinity  was 
of  so  crude  a  character  that  men  gained  little  and  the 
gods  lost  much  in  dignity  through  the  grossly  imagined 
forms  embodying  what  were  at  best  but  vague  guesses 
at  the  truth.  Indeed  it  was  not  the  divinity  of  hu- 
manity that  was  apprehended  so  much  as  the  divinity 
in  lower  measure  on  the  part  of   individual    men    of 


^The  familiar  line  :  ''For  we  are  also  his  offspring;,"  which 
appears  in  Acts  xvii,  28,  Paul  is  represented  as  quoting  in 
his  address  to  the  Athenians,  and  as  explicitly  referring  it  to 
"certain  of  their  own  poets  "  The  line  has  been  found  in 
the  Stoic  Cleanthes  who  flourished  about  270  B.  C.  Two 
centuries  earlier,  indeed,  the  thought  was  already  a  familiar 
one  to  the  Greeks.  In  "The  Suppliants"  of  .^^schylos  (of. 
Plumptre's  translation),  the  Chorus,  as  the  prophetic  medium 
through  which  the  poet  expresses  his  highest  notions  of  the 
divine  World  declare  : 


CHRISTIAN   KTHICS.  403 

loag  past  ages.  Such  men  were,  in  fact,  the  heroes 
of  a  past  that  never  was,  heroes  who  could  be  believed 
in  only  by  a  people  whose  imaginings  had  never  yet 
been  brought  to  the  test  of  critical  examination.  Be- 
fore that  test  all  such  imaginings  could  not  but  fade 
into  mere  spectral  form,  leaving  faith  without  sub- 
stantial ground  for  its  continuance  and  reducing  the 
standard  of  morality  to  individual  caprice."  On  the 
other  hand  the  more  rigidly  the  essential  conceptions 
of  the  Christian  Religion  are  examined  the  more  are 
they  found  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  reason  and  to 
show  that  the  fundamental  basis  of  all  moralit}^  is  to 
be  sought  in  the  inmost  nature  of  man  himself  as  the 
ceaselessly  advancing,  forever  reappearing  Son  of 
God.  On  this  basis  "Right"  is  whatever  tends  to 
the  enriching  of  the  essential  life  of  man    considered 


"And  so  the  whole  land  shouts  with  one  accord, 
'I/O,  a  race  sprung  from  him,  the  Lord  of  life, 

In  very  deed  Zeus-born  !' 

****** 

He  is  our  Father,  author  of  our  life, 

The  King  whose  right  hand  worketh  all  his  will. 

Our  line's  great  author,  in  his  counsels  deep, 

Recording  things  of  old, 
Directing  all  hisplans.  thegreat  work-master  Zeus." 
Meanwhile  Cleanthes,  like3schylos,  was  still  a  pantheist, 
though  even  the  latter  is  not  without  indications  of  a  higher 
and  more  spiritual  faith,  as  at  least  the  following  lines  at- 
tributed to  him  would  go  to  prove  : 

"The  air  is  Zeus,  Zeus  the  Earth,  and  Zeus  the  heaven, 
Zeus  all  that  is,  and  what  h'aftscends  them  all.'' 

-As  the  Greeks  lost  faith  in  their  gods  their  philosophy 
took  the  form  of  reckless  sophistry  and  their  ethics  developed 
into  the  grossest  hedonism. 


404  CHRISTIAN   ETHICS. 

as  divine  in  nature  and  hence  as  destined  to  endless 
and  endlessly  intensifying  conscious  existence. 
"Wrong"  is  whatever  tends  to  impoverish  the  essen- 
tial life  of  man  so  regarded.  The  standard  is  not  ca- 
pricious and  arbitrary,  but  fixed  as  the  laws  of  eter- 
nally self-consistent  Reason. 

And  as  for  the  simple  monistic  form  of  faith  of 
which  Mohammedanism  presents  the  most  conspicuous 
example,  the  fact  that,  as  a  faith,  it  must  logically 
suppress  all  tendencies  leading  toward  a  higher  cul- 
ture, could  not  but  reduce  the  morality  of  its  votaries 
even  to  a  lower  level  than  that  of  the  more  advanced 
polytheistic  faiths — a  conclusion  already  indicated  on 
a  preceding  page,  and  of  which  practical  illustration 
is  presented  by  the  Turks  of  to-day  in  contrast  with 
the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans. 

Such  monistic  faith  is  in  fact  nothing  else  than  a 
transition  form  which  proves  to  be  a  simple  and  utter 
negation  in  which  gods  and  men  alike  are  annulled 
as  individual  existences — a  spiritual  night  in  which 
dawning  Personality  seems  wholly  quenched. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Christian  Religion  in  its  es- 
sential character  not  only  represents  the  highest  de- 
gree of  the  human  spirit  thus  far  attained  ;  but  also 
its  central  doctrine  of  the  spirituality  of  God  and  the 
divine  Sonship  of  Man  already  involves  in  itself  the 
highest  conceivable  ethical  principle — the    principle 


CHRISTIAN   KTHICS.  405 

which  demands  the  ceaseless  self-unfolding  of  man  as 
Mind,  and  hence  of  man  as  the  divine  Son,  into  ever 
richer  degrees  of  realized  likeness  with  God  as  the 
one  divine  Father — the  one  eternally  perfect  Mind. 


IX. 


ETERNITY. 

A   THREAD   IN   THE   WEAVING   OF   A    LIFE. 

I. 

Among  my  earliest  recollections  are  those  of  the 
pictures  of  hell  which  I  saw  from  Sunday  to  Sunday 
in  a  country  church.  They  were  drawn  with  wide- 
sweeping  gestures  by  the  frenzied  preacher,  and 
colored  by  the  wails  of  the  devout  in  the  congregation. 

The  pictures  were  balanced  by  the  favorite  hymns 
emphasizing  the  endless  bliss  of  that  place — 

"Where  congregations  ne'er  break  up 
And  Sabbaths  have  no  end," 

Especially  was  I  impressed  with  the  conception  : 

"When  we've  been  there  ten  thousand  years, 
Bright  shining  as  the  sun, 
We've  no  less  days  to  sing  God's  praise 
Than  when  we  first  begun." 

The  drawl  of  the  singing  only  served  to  intensify  the 
significance  of  the  lines  to  me,  and  each  repetition 
filled  me  with  a  deeper  awe  and  terror. 

Out  of  what  chaos  of  childish  talk  I  can  not  say, 
but  in  some  way  there  developed  one  day   between  a 


ETKRNITY.  407 

playmate  and  myself  the  question  :  How  far  is  it  to 
the  end  of  the  world  ?  Where  my  playmate  went  I 
have  no  recollection.  But  I  know  that  I  ran  eagerly 
to  my  mother  for  the  answer  I  doubted  not  she  would 
give.  She  was  repeating  my  question,  as  a  mother 
will,  when  my  father  chanced  to  pass  through  the 
^oom.  He  understood  from  the  tone  that  the  ques- 
tion was  mine  ;  and,  wiihout  stopping,  he  said  in  an 
abrupt,  half-bantering  manner,  "The  world  has  no 
end."  The  same  vague  terror  thrilled  me  as  when 
listening  to  the  voices  of  the  congregation  wailing 
out  the  hymns  declaring  the  endless  life  of  the  saved. 
I  was  repelled  by  it  and  sojn  lost  myself  in  the  usual 
physical  life  of  childuood.  This  I  now  infer  from  the 
fact  that  memory  shows  no  record  for  long  afterward. 
At  the  age  of  nine  or  ten  years  the  idea  of  endless 
duration  flashed  upon  me  with  perfect  clearness.  And 
the  terror  I  experienced  was  beyond  expression.  I 
had  just  gone  into  a  very  small  "house"  which  I  had 
been  building  and  which  was  barely  large  enough 
for  me  to  turn  in.  I  had  just  seated  myself  with  the 
satisfaction  of  achievement  when  all  the  nebulous  im- 
pressions of  former  years  suddenly  assumed  perfect 
order,  and  I  felt  that  my  existence  must  be  endless. 
It  seemed  as  if  all  the  world  were  crumbling  in  upon 
me  and  crushing  me.  I  hurried  out  of  the  cramped 
place  and  ran  again  to  my  mother.  I  asked  her 
whether  it  was  really  true  that  I  must  live  always    if 


408  KTERNITY. 

I  went  to  heaven.  She  seemed  startled  by  the  ques- 
tion, but  answered  as  Puritan  mother  must,  and  asked 
quietly  if  I  did  not  want  to  live  always.  I  was  too 
full  of  terror  to  answer,  and  only  asked  whether  I 
must  live  always  if  I  went  to  the  ''other  place."  The 
same  stern  Puritan  faith  answered  unhesitatingly  that 
those  who  go  there  must  also  live  always.  There 
was  no  subtilizing,  no  attempt  to  turn  me  away  from 
the  theme,  to  her  so  solemn,  to  me  so  dreadful.  She 
went  on  about  her  work  while  I  sat  on  the  floor  and 
sobbed  out  my  despair.  At  that  moment  the  pros- 
pect of  endless  existence,  even  though  it  be  in 
heaven,  was  to  me  a  very  present  hell.  I  had  not 
yet  heard  of  the  "soul-sleeper's''  doctrine  with  its  an- 
nihilation of  the  wicked  ;  and  when  I  did  hear  of  the 
doctrine,  it  was  with  such  strong  condemnation  on 
the  part  of  those  in  whose  wisdom  I  had  unshaken 
confidence  that  it  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  surest  of 
all  the  ways  mapped  out  to  SheoL 

Just  as  I  reached  the  age  of  twelve  years,  my  par- 
ents— pioneers  in  spirit — moved  to  a  Western  prairie. 
The  summer  proved  a  somewhat  severe  trial  to  my 
health.  One  day,  while  lying  on  a  cot,  my  mother 
near  me,  I  suddenly  felt  myself  caught  up  to  a  height 
immeasureable,  beyond  all  visible  objects,  and  while 
I  called  out  an  agonized  "good-bye"  to  my  mother,  I 
felt  myself  bound  to  a  huge  iron  wheel  that  rolled 
without    the  slightest   jar  and  with  tremendous  ve- 


ETERNITY.  409 

locit}'  along  a  thiu,  perfectly  straight  line  of  fire 
stretched  through  otherwise  empty  space.  I  knew 
that  I  must  go  in  this  way  to  the  end  of  the  line,  and 
I  knew  that  the  line  w^as  endless.  It  was  but  a  mo- 
ment, and  yet  in  that  moment  I  felt  the  doom  of  an 
eternity  with  nothing  but  the  iron  wheel  and  the 
track  of  fire,  and  my  soul  destined  to  yearn  endlessly 
for  all  that  it  held  dear.  When  I  was  quiet  again  my 
mother  spoke  gently  to  me,  moistened  my  lips  and 
brow,  smoothed  back  my  hair  and  presently  I  fell 
asleep.  But  for  long  afterward  the  vision  would  re- 
cur to  me  at  times  and  awaken  unspeakable  terror. 
And  with  it  my  terror  at  the  thought  of  endless  exist- 
ence became  more  intense.  It  was  only  long  after  its 
occurrence  that  I  realized  how  truly  the  vision  sym- 
bolized the  state  of  a  "lost"  soul,  which  can  have  be- 
come "lost"  only  by  breaking  connection  with  all 
that  is  good  and  worthy  and  enduring,  and  must 
therefore  be  whirled  through  eternity  on  whatever 
fiery  track  the  iron  wheel  of  its  destiny  may  chance 
to  roll. 

II. 

In  school  I  found  reminders  of  the  same  contradic- 
tion that  met  me  elsewhere.  In  a  text-book  of  arith- 
metic I  found  time  defined  as  a  "measured  portion  of 
duration."  The  definition  seemed  unquestionable, 
and  yet  from  it  I  could  only  gather  the    impression 


410  ETERNITY. 

that  time  must  be  understood  to  be  just  a  measured 
portion  of  the  measureless.  And  yet  this  dreadful 
"measureless"  I  was  myself  destined  to  measure.  In 
my  thought  it  was  indeed  a  hopeless  contradiction. 
Yet  I  doubted  not  of  the  fact.  I  felt  myself  bound  to 
accept  the  impossible  as  the  real. 

Again,  geography  unfolded  the  same  contradic- 
tions. Here  it  was,  indeed,  not  endless  duration,  but 
boundless  extension.  I  had  chanced  to  be  so  taught 
the  facts  of  geography  that,  instead  of  being  nothing 
more  than  mere  words,  they  seemed  substantial 
realities  which  I  could  clearly  picture  to  myself  as 
existing  there  side  by  side  in  space.  Especially,  I 
had  received  a  vivid  impression  of  the  solar  system, 
with  the  immense  orbits  of  its  members. 

By  degrees  this  became  assimilated  in  my  conscious- 
ness ;  and  occasion  soon  came — as  in  such  cases  "oc- 
casion" must  always  come — to  crystallize  the  vague 
impression  into  form.  It  was  on  a  summer  evening. 
I  was  following  the  cows  homeward  along  a  path  in  a 
ravine,  and  looking  up  now  and  then  at  the  sky.  As 
the  twilight  deepened  a  star  gleamed  out  through  the 
blue  depths.  Suddenly,  and  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life,  I  felt  vividly — vividly  enough  for  the  feeling  to 
become  a  clearly  defined  thought — that,  in  looking  at 
a  star,  I  was  looking  at  an  immeasurably  distant 
world.  And  the  blue  vault  !  In  the  same  instant 
that  had  vanished.     I  knew  I  was  looking  into  the 


ETERNITY.  411 

depths,  not  at  the  "floor  of  heaven."  With  this  there 
was  a  sudden  sense  of  giddiness,  as  if  the  foundations 
of  the  world  had  that  moment  been  wrenched  away, 
and  it  and  I  and  all  were  falling  swiftly — whither  ? 

It  was  the  definite  beginning  of  my  mental  recon- 
stitution,  though  I  was  then  far  enough  from  being 
aware  of  it. 

III. 

Years  after,  on  the  march  and  in  battle — for  I  was  just 
old  enough  to  be  accepted  among  the  first  volunteers 
in  the  late  war — I  saw  how  impossible  it  is  to  adjust 
a  greatly  enlarged  and  highly  complex  human  world 
to  the  pattern  provided  by  the  simple  primitive  life  of 
the  ancient  Hebrews.  It  was  as  if  the  friction  of  this 
great  struggle  had  set  my  Puritan  faith  aglow,  rais- 
ing it  to  the  point  of  fusion  and  plasticity,  I  had  seen 
men  in  blue  and  men  in  gray  lying  where  the  demonic 
tempest  had  left  them,  with  eyes  strained  widely  open 
as  if  the  unspeakable  mystery  of  eternity  had  that 
moment  for  the  first  time  dawned  upon  them.  And 
these  men — what  had  their  lives  been  ?  What  were 
their  lives  now  ?  What  were  their  lives  eternally 
to  bef 

I  had  left  school  to  take  part  in  this  struggle.  And 
the  experience  of  the  struggle  only  intensified  the 
problem  of  which  I  had  begun  to  seek  the  solution  in 
school.     Thus  it  was  that  when  the  struggle  ended  I 


412  ETERNITY. 

was  again  in  school,  seeking  what  help  the  school 
might  give. 

And  yet,  in  school  my  teachers  seemed  concerned 
with  little  else  than  syntax  and  mathematical  sym- 
bols. So  that,  when  I  asked  them  to  help  me  con- 
strue a  soul  or  to  find  the  locus  of  my  own  existence, 
they  repeated  a  text  of  Scripture  and  referred  me  to 
the  conventional  co-ordinates. 

Evidently,  then,  I  must  look  for  help  elsewhere. 
And  I  was  like  a  beginner  in  astronomy,  who  must 
grope  about  in  the  night,  through  an  instrument 
which  he  little  understands  the  use  of,  to  find  the  true 
polar  star.  Guides  to  reading  I  had  none.  I  went 
often  to  the  book-stand,  and  found  little  else  than  the 
usual  trivialities. 

A  fellow-student  talked  admiringly  of  Dr.  Hol- 
land's Bitter-sweet — think  of  it  ! — as  solving  the  prob- 
lem of  evil.  I  read,  and  found  nothing  but  bitter.  If 
evil  was  to  be  accounted  for  as  a  necessar}^  instru- 
mentality in  the  development  of  good,  then  "evil"  is 
not  evil,  but  good.  It  was  substantially  the  argu- 
ment of  the  country  preacher,  that  "If  Adam  had  not 
sinned  there  would  have  been  no  occasion  for  the 
coming  of  the  Redeemer,  and  hence  man  could  never 
have  known  the  extent  of  the  divine  love  to  man." 
(Though  in  this  the  country  preacher  was  not  with- 
out shining  examples,  such  as  Anselm.)  Dr.  Mc- 
Cosh's  Divine  Government  fell  into  my  hands.   vSurely 


ETERNITY.  413 

this  would  tell  me  the  thing  I  longed  to  know.  In 
reality,  the  argument  became  focused  for  me  into 
something  like  this  :  the  things  we  know  in  part  are 
to  be  explained  by  the  things  we  don't  know  at  all. 

At  least,  these  two  books  served  as  an  irritant.  If 
the  received  dogmas  drove  reason  into  such  self-stulti- 
fications as  these,  then  there  must  be  something  radi- 
cally wrong  with  the  received  dogmas.  For  reason 
can  only  be  reason  by  being  self-consistent.  And 
man  is  man  only  in  the  possession  and  use  of  reason. 

While  my  school-days  continued  I  heard  scarcely  a 
reference  to  the  modern  English  school  of  thinkers. 
If  Spencer  or  Darwin  were  mentioned  at  all,  it  was 
with  a  condescending  smile  or  with  an  expression  of 
horror— much  as  economists  of  the  schools  now  refer 
to  Henry  George  or  to  Karl  Marx.  Of  German 
philosophy,  not  a  word.  It  was  while  teaching  a 
winter  term  of  school  in  the  country  that  I  fell  upon 
Agassiz's  papers  on  the  Glacial  Epoch,  as  they  ap- 
peared in  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  At  the  same  time,  in 
the  school  library  of  the  district.  I  found  Carlyle's 
Heroes  and  Hero-  'Worship.  Here  were  two  streams  of 
vitality  ;  and  they  proved  a  substantial  relief  from  the 
sermons  of  a  good  man  who  came  to  the  neighborhood 
once  a  month  to  make  plain  to  the  people  the  way  of 
truth,  and  who  labored  zealously  for  two  hours  one 
Sunday   to    show   his  congregation   that    all    storms 


414  •  ETERNITY. 

with  their  destructive  character  were  due  solely  to  the 
vicious  Prince  of  the  Power  of  the  Air. 

Happily,  school-days  come  to  an  end  ;  and  when  I 
had  once  realized  that  I  was  no  longer  to  answer  the 
call  of  a  professor  and  report  upon  tasks  assigned,  I 
found  my  way  to  what  seemed  a  favorable  location  for 
work,  and  began  seeking  everywhere  for  light — in 
magazines  and  reviews,  and  especially  through  the 
shelves  of  a  library  which  a  Western  senator  had  been 
wise  and  generous  enough  to  establish  in  the  town. 

Carlyle's  Sartor  Resariiis  proved  somewhat  puzzling 
at  first,  with  its  Titan  extravaganza  ;  though  out  of  it 
all  I  at  length  gathered  the  significant  conception  that 
all  objects  appealing  to  the  senses  are,  in  truth,  noth- 
ing else  than  the  transitory  forms,  the  mere  wrappage 
of  spirit,  or  mind.  Body,  that  which  occupies  space, 
is  nothing  more  than  a  suit  of  clothes,  or  raw  ma- 
terial for  such,  which  mind  puts  on  and  off,  wears  out 
and  flings  to  the  rag-heap. 

It  was  well  for  me  that  that  conception  took  shape 
when  it  did,  and  that  it  was  reinforced  in  a  subtle 
way  through  the  influence  of  Max  MuUer's  Science  of 
Lajigiiage,  which  I  read  with  intense  delight.  It 
was  well  to  have  this  clear  impression  of  the  power  of 
mind  over  materiality  take  shape  then  ;  for  I  soon 
came  under  the  spell  of  Spencer  and  Darwin  and 
Huxley,  whose  works  so  constantly  emphasize  and  so 
admirably  present  the  aspects  of  truth  unfolded  in  the 


ETERNITY.  415 

material  world  as  to  tend  inevitably  toward  a  one- 
sided, materialistic  view  of  the  world  on  the  part  of 
the  young  and  eager  inquirer. 

The  First  Principles  of  Mr.  Spencer  was  of  special 
value  to  me.  Its  statements  of  the  antinomies,  or 
seeming  contradictions  in  thought,  were  at  once  a 
stimulus  and  a  means  of  classification.  In  it  I  found 
wide  and  systematic  formulation  of  the  contradictions 
I  had  so  long  felt.  And  the  more  clearly  those  con- 
tradictions came  to  be  formulated,  the  less  endurable 
I  felt  them  to  be.  And  if  the  "reconciliation"  offered 
in  the  First  Principles  proved  to  be  by  no  means  a  sat- 
isfying one  to  me,  yet  only  so  much  the  more  did  it 
bring  me  to  feel  the  absolute  need  of  finding  a  perfect 
reconciliation. 

Indeed,  hope  of  reconciliation  seemed  to  beckon 
along  the  lines  of  investigation  presented  in  the  posi- 
tive portion  of  the  First  Principles.  The  discussion 
of  the  Indestructibility  of  Matter,  the  Continuity  of 
Motion  and  the  Persistence  of  Force  all  pointed  to  a 
working  Unit,  which  was,  indeed,  not  related  to  any 
other  than  itself.  In  that  sense  it  did  indeed  seem  to 
be  "unconditioned."  And  yet  just  from  that  fact  it 
must  itself  include  all  conditions,  all  relations.  Nay, 
it  must  not  merely  include  them  as  a  vessel  includes 
its  contents.  As  the  persistent  Unit  it  must  include 
all  conditions  and  relations  in  the  sense  of  unfolding 
them  within  itself  as  the  modes  of  its  own  existence. 


416  ETERNITY. 

And,  indeed,  this  conception  has  already  become 
measurably  explicit  in  the  language  of  science.  For 
what  had  previously  been  spoken  of  as  "forces"  are 
now  classed  as  merely  modes  of  that  one  Force  which 
persists. 

And  this  persistent  Force  could  not  be  conceived 
save  as  having  ever  persisted — save  as  ever  contin- 
uing to  persist.  The  "forces"  were  measurable.  And 
yet  they  were  only  modes  of  the  one  persistent  Force 
which  was  vieasiireless.  And  so  I  seemed  bound  to 
my  iron  wheel  again  with  the  doom  of  measuring  the 
measureless  renewed.  And  this  feeling  was  rendered 
increasingly  vivid  by  the  disclosures  of  geology  with 
the  accompanying  evidences  of  the  continuity  of  life 
in  the  development  of  our  world. 

Most  impressive  of  all,  in  this  respect,  was  the  ac_ 
count  which  Mr.  Spencer  gives  of  the  Nebular 
Hypothesis.  Time  expanded  to  my  mind  until  it 
seemed  indeed  to  vanish  into  eternit}^ — a  mere 
measured  portion  of  Duration.  Spencer  and  I^yell  and 
Darwin  and  Huxley — what  a  magnificent,  what  an 
appalling,  revelation  they  had  formulated  !  And  so 
much  the  more  appalling  as  it  seemed  clashing  ruin- 
ously with  the  other  long  implicitly  trusted  divine 
Revelation.  No  wonder  that  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
poor  Hugh  Miller,  struggling  desperately  through 
seas  of  doubt  in  search  of  the  Golden  Fleece  of  Truth, 
should  be  caught  and  crushed  by  such  Symplegades  ! 


ETERNITY.  417 

Crossing  a  brook  one  day,  I  looked  down  at  the  bare 
strata  of  limestone.  Crinoids  weie  visible  at  every 
break  in  the  rock.  Just  a  glimpse  between  the  edges 
of  the  leaves  of  how  old  a  book  !  And  with  his  ham- 
mer, aided  by  the  occasional  crowbar  and  explosive 
of  the  railway  builder,  the  scientist  has  been  for  a 
little  while  working  his  way  into  this  huge  volume  ! 
How  fragmentary,  even  at  the  best,  his  work  must 
still  be  !  Nay,  the  book  itself,  bound  in  the  "ever- 
lasting hills,"  has  gathered  its  meaning  through 
myriads  of  ages,  and,  according  to  the  estimate  of 
science,  must  sooner  or  later  be  dashed  into  nebula 
again,  all  its  rich,  slowly  gathered  significance 
blotted  out  forever.  And  as  I  stood  there  I  thought 
how  men,  in  their  pygmy  presumption,  move  about 
over  the  rugged  binding  of  this  huge  volume  and  con- 
struct their  books,  fondly  imagining  that  these  works 
of  theirs  shall  last  forever ! 

All  this  was  leading  up  to  a  conception  of  which  I 
was  then,  indeed,  altogether  unaware.  The  concep- 
tion suddenly  assumed  definite  formulation  one  eve- 
ning while  I  was  reading,  in  a  history  of  philosophy, 
the  theory  of  Averroes.  This  Arab  interpreter  of 
Aristotle  had  caught  eagerly  at  the  idea  of  unity  and 
continuity  unfolded  in  the  work  of  the  Greek,  and 
had  interpreted  that  idea  in  the  Oriental  sense.  The 
Divinity  is  all.  There  is  but  one  "active  Intellect." 
Whatever  of  reality  there  is  in  man  is   but  an   ema- 


418  ETERNITY. 

nation  from  God,  and  must  be  re-absorbed  into  the 
Divine  substance.  The  Mohammedan,  looking  into 
the  pages  of  Aristotle,  arrived  at  the  same  pantheistic 
conclusion  as  did  the  Brahman  looking  into  the 
swiftly  changing  manifestations  of  the  world  about 
him. 

Could  it  be  that  this  was  the  truth  which  science, 
in  these  latter  times,  was  also  unfolding  in  its  dis- 
coveries as  to  the  continuity  of  motion  and  the  per- 
sistence of  Force  ?  For  the  moment  I  could  not  re- 
sist the  conclusion  that  such  was  the  case.  And  I 
experienced  an  inexpressible  sense  of  relief  at  the 
thought  that,  though  I  might  be  a  passing  mode  of 
the  Eternal,  yet  I  was,  after  all,  not  the  embodiment 
of  that  dreadful  contradiction  which  my  early  train- 
ing had  led  me  to  suppose  myself  to  be.  The  Divine 
is  doubtless  eternal.  But  all  "else"  is  transitory. 
There  is  one  Force  that  persists.  All  "else"  is  but  a 
passing  mode  of  that  Force.  Or,  as  Mr.  Edwin  Ar- 
nold has  since  expressed  it,  "The  gods  but  live  ;  only 
Brahm  endures  " 

V. 

For  a  time  I  rested  in  this  feeling.  But  for  a  time 
only  ;  for  I  soon  discovered  that  it  was  no  more  than 
a  feeling.  When  I  began  to  examine  it  more  closely 
I  discovered  that  it  could  not  stand  the  test  of  analy- 
sis.    It  might  be  true  enough  that  all  physically  con- 


ETERNITY.  419 

stituted  units  were  destined  to  dissolution.  It  might 
well  be  that  an  "atom" — an  absolutely  indivisible 
unit — is  here  wholly  unthinkable  as  a  reality.  But 
there  seemed  to  be  characteristics  in  man  that  could 
not  be  accounted  for  on  any  theory  of  the  merely 
"physical  basis  of  life."  So  that,  after  all,  the  cen- 
tral problem  of  my  life  was  not  solved  ;  and  the  for- 
mer sense  of  needed  solution  was  renewed  and  re- 
doubled in  urgency. 

So  far  I  had  trusted  mainly  to  the  English  school 
of  thinkers  for  guidance.  There  now  fell  into  my 
hands  the  first  numbers  of  the  Joicryial  of  Speculative 
Philosophy ,  with  its  translations  from  and  interpre- 
tations of  the  works  of  leading  German  thinkers. 

I  had,  indeed,  found  reference  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
First  Principles  to  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  But  these 
references  were  only  incidental,  and  by  way  of  ac- 
cepting the  "antinomies" — the  alleged  imbecilities  of 
reason.  But  what  had  Kant  really  said  of  positive 
import  ?  In  the  Jourjial  I  found  frequent  and  highly 
appreciative  references  to  his  Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 

In  company  with  others,^  I  set  about  the  study  of 
this  book,  and  found  in  it  for  the  first  time  ground 
that  became  firmer  the  more  I  examined  it.  A  criti- 
cal study  of  the  nature  of  thought  itself  and  of   the 


^This  group  was  the  ^'■Kant  Club,'^  of  St.  Louis,  under  the 
leadership  of  Dr.  Wm.  T.  Harris.  Several  winters  were  spent 
in  studying,  first,  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason;  afterward, 
Hegel's  Logic. 


420  ETERNITY. 

necessary  conditions  of  the  exercise  of  thought — that 
proved  to  be  the  really  indispensable  preliminary  to 
all  really  systematic  thinking.  I  began  to  discover 
with  the  aid  of  Kant  that  the  "relativity  of  knowl- 
edge," to  which  the  English  school  of  thinkers  were 
so  entirely  pledged,  was  an  ambiguous  and  therefore 
misleading  phrase.  Very  commonly  the  phrase  was 
used  to  mean  the  relativity  that  is  of  necessity  in- 
volved in  knowledge.  So  far  the  meaning  was  le- 
gitimate enough.  Doubtless  there  can  be  no  knowl- 
edge that  excludes  relation.  Especially  and  primarily 
there  can  be  no  knowledge  save  as  involving  the  re- 
lation of  a  knowing  subject  to  a  known  object.  Sub- 
ject and  object  are  unquestionably  correlative  terms. 
But,  then,  when  I  think  of  my  own  act  of  knowing, 
and  analyze  the  act  into  its  correlative  phases  of  act- 
of-knowing  on  the  one  hand  and  object-known  on  the 
other,  I  have  already  made  my  very  act-of-knowing 
an  object  of  my  own  knowledge.  I  can  not  know  the 
correlatives  of  subject  and  object  as  such  without 
making  each  an  object  of  my  thinking.  The  thinking 
unit  thinks  of  itself  as  a  thinking  unit.  That  is,  the 
subject,  or  thinking  unit,  necessarily  becomes  an  ob- 
ject to  itself.  And  this  is  expressed  in  the  term  con- 
sciousness,  and  is  doubly  emphasized  in  the  term  self- 
consciousness. 

Whence  there  is  to  be  noted  this  distinction  :  that, 
on  the  one  hand,  in  the  experience  of  the  individual, 


ETERNITY.  421 

the  relativity  exhibited  between  subject  and  object 
does  indeed  often  present  the  object  as  a  unit  separate 
and  apart  from  the  subject ;  but  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  all  self-examination  the  relativity  subsists 
wholly  within  the  knowing  subject,  which  in  all  such 
acts  proves  to  be  its  own  object.  And  this  is  neces- 
sarily implied  in  every  possible  act  of  knowing. 

It  thus  turns  out  that  the  fundamental  relation  in 
knowing  is  the  rela'tion  of  the  subject  to  itself ;  it  is 
self-relation  And,  while  relativity  is  necessirily  in- 
volved in  thought,  there  is  no  real  justification  for  say- 
ing that  thought,  as  such,  is  involved  in  relation.  In- 
deed, to  insist  upon  the  absolute  relativity  of  thought 
is  to  insist  that  thought  is  related  to  something  wholly 
different  from  thought.  And  the  relativist  himself  is 
ready  enough  to  insist  that  one  can  really  know  noth- 
ing else  than  his  own  mental  states. 

But  he  also  insists  that  these  states  are  still  subject 
to  something  beyond  us  which  we  neither  do  nor  can 
know.  And  so  all  our  knowledge  is  built  up  of  "ex- 
periences ;"  and,  as  we  can  never  transcend  "ex- 
perience,"  it  is  evident  that  all  our  "ideas"  must  be 
accounted  for  as  relative,  as  dependent,  as  experimen- 
tally derived.  Thus  it  is  that  our  idea  of  space  is 
said  to  be  derived  from  our  experience  of  resistance, 
and  our  idea  of  time  from  our  feeling  of  difference  or 
change. 

But  Kant  puts  all  this  on  a  wholly  different  basis. 


422  ETERNITY. 

The  question  is  not  how  we  come  to  have  the  idea  of 
space  and  of  time.  Doubtless  those  ideas  are  derived 
from  our  experiences ;  and  yet  it  is  also  beyond  doubt 
that  our  "ideas,"  of  whatever  type,  constitute  the  very 
core  of  all  our  "experiences."  But  the  essential 
question  is:  given  the  ideas  of  space  and  time,  criti- 
cally to  examine  them  and  discover  the  degree  of 
their  validity  on  the  one  hand  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  find  their  precise  relation  to  those  facts  of 
our  consciousness  which  have  reference  to  space  and 
time.  Could  I  perceive  a  tree  or  a  bird  or  a  star 
otherwise  than  as  in  space  ?  The  question  brings  its 
own  answer.  And  the  significant  conclusion  follows 
that  space  is  a  necessary  condition  of  all  my  percep- 
tions of  external  objects.  It  is  only  by  analysis  that 
I  become  aware  of  this  fact  ;  but  the  fact  itself  is  un- 
questionably present  as  a  factor  in  every  possible  per- 
ception of  such  object.  From  which  it  follows  that 
space  is  a  necessary  condition  or  mode  of  my  percep- 
tions, and  in  that  respect  is  subjective — is  a  relation 
that  subsists  in  my  consciousness. 

But  it  is  just  as  unquestionable  that  space  is  a  neces- 
sary condition  or  relation  of  the  objects  perceived. 
They  are  at  such  and  such  distance  from  one  another 
and  from  me.  And  since  I  can  not  perceive  objects 
otherwise  than  as  in  these  relations,  then  space  is  a 
necessary  relation  of  object  to  object,  and  is  therefore 
objective  no  less  than  subjective.     So  that  when  one 


ETERNITY.  423 

comes  and  says  that,  according  to  Kant's  interpreta- 
tion, "The  head  is  not  so  much  in  space  as  space  is 
in  the  head,"  there  is  strong  temptation  to  comment  : 
Very  likely — at  least  for  the  one  so  reading  Kant.  In 
the  same  way,  time,  as  the  necessary  condition  of  our 
perceptions  of  change,  is  at  once  condition  of  the  per- 
ceptions and  of  the  changes  perceived,  and  hence  is 
at  once  both  subjective  and  objective. 

But  also  since  space  can  not  be  conceived  as  ob- 
jectively anything  more  than  the  necessary  negative 
condition  of  all  outer  limitation,  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  of  it  as  itself  in  any  way  limited.  Any 
boundary  we  may  assume  /or  space  is  at  once  seen  to 
be  merely  an  assumed  boundary  withhi  space.  It  is 
true  that  I  can  not  imagiyie  space  as  unlimited,  but 
neither  can  I  think  space  as  limited.  I  can  not 
imagine  time  as  unlimited,  but  neither  can  I  think 
time  as  anything  else  than  a  measured  phase  of  dur- 
ation. When  I  attempt  to  measure  space  or  time  I 
am  hopelessly  baffled.  They  can  not  be  conceived  in 
the  sense  of  imagining  them.  One  can  only  conceive 
them  in  the  sense  of  thinking  them.  One  can  not 
imagine  the  infinite,  though  he  may  think  it;  just  as 
one  can  not  really  think  a  centaur,  though  he  may 
imagine  it. 

It  is  just  this  failure  to  distinguish  with  perfect  pre- 
cision between  thinking  and  imagining  that  seemed 
to  me  a  fatal  defect  in  Mr.  Spencer's  work — following, 


424  ETERNITY. 

as  he  did,  only  too  closely  in  this  respect  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  and  Mr.  Mansel  ;  the  refusal  to  recognize 
which  distinction  had  enabled  the  latter  to  "refute" 
German  philosoph3^  With  each  of  these  writers  the 
term  "conception"  is  constantly  used  as  equivalent 
to  "pictorial  representation."  The  "inconceivable" 
is  with  them  "the  unimaginable"  or  "unthinkable." 
And  it  is  evidently  by  this  confusion  of  terms  that 
Mr.  Spencer  was  led  to  his  "Unknowable." 

VI. 

With  the  help  of  Kant,  this  at  length  became  clear 
to  me.  And,  as  it  did  so,  I  began  to  realize  that  I 
had  made  a  further  step  in  clarifying  my  own  mind 
concerning  the  problem  that  had  all  along  pressed 
upon  me  with  such  force.  Space  and  time  were  two 
undeniable  modes  of  existence,  both  subjective  and 
objective.  And  I  had  now  come  to  recognize  that 
they  can  not  be  other  than  infinite.  They  were  in  a 
twofold  sense,  then,  modes  of  my  own  existence. 
They  were  modes  of  my  subjective  or  spiritual  exist- 
ence, and  also  modes  of  my  objective  or  bodily  exist- 
ence. Doubtless  they  are  in  the7nselves  ovXy  mere 
blank  forms  ;  but  they  are  infinite  forms,  which  some- 
how I  seem  destined,  after  all,  to  realize  in  my  own 
existence.  For,  as  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  a 
boundary  to  space  beyond  which  there  is  not  still 
other  space,  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  limit 


ETERNITY.*  425 

to  time  beyond  which  there  is  not  still  other  time,  so 
I  began  to  discover  that  there  is  no  conceivable  boun- 
dary for  intelligence  beyond  which  intelligence  may 
not  pass. 

I  noted,  too,  that  when  considered  in  respect  of 
their  infinite  divisibility,  space  and  time  are  mani- 
festly modes  of  finite  existence  ;  whereas,  considered 
with  respect  to  their  boundless  extension,  they  are  as 
manifestly  modes  of  infinite  existence  And  infinite 
existence — what  could  that  be  but  the  total  of  all 
Reality  organically  unfolded  into  every  possible  phase 
of  finite  existence  expressive  of  every  possible  mode 
of  an  infinite  Power  !  And  for  myself — I  could  only 
be  a  mode  of  that  infinitely  developed  Power,  though 
also,  it  appeared,  a  mode  destined  to  infinite  devel- 
opment. 

Evidently,  too,  that  Power  could  be  no  other  than 
the  ultimate  Unit  which  Mr.  Spencer  names  the 
"Unknowable."  And  yet,  "unknowable"  though  it 
be,  Mr.  Spencer  refers  to  it  as  having  an  "established 
order. "^  He  calls  it  the  "Unknowable  Power,"-  and 
yet,  almost  in  the  same  breath,  speaks  of  it  as  "mani- 
festing itself."^  Nay,  he  is  also  able  to  discover  "the 
existence  of  knowable  likenesses  and  differences 
among  the  manifestations  of  that  Power"  as  well  as 
"a  resulting  segregation  of  the  manifestations  into 
those  of  subject  and  object."^ 


^ First  Principles^    (New  York    ed.),   p.    117.       ^Qp.    Cit., 
p.  157.      ^Op.  Cit.,  p.  154  and  elsewhere.      ^Op.  Cit.,  p.  157. 


426  "ETERNITY. 

True,  he  claims  that  these  are  in  the  main  no  more 
than  "postulates."  But  he  also  claims  to  have 
"shown  that,  though  by  the  relativity  of  our  thought 
we  are  eternally  debarred  from  knowing  or  conceiv- 
ing Absolute  Being,  yet  that  this  very  relativity  of 
our  thought  necessitates  that  vague  consciousness  of 
Absolute  Being  which  no  mental  effort  can  sup- 
press.."^ So  that,  after  all,  Absolute  Being  does 
prove  to  be  relative  to  the  relative.  "No  mental  ef- 
fort can  suppress"  that  fact. 

And  yet,  though  there  are  "knowable  likenesses 
and  differences  among  the  manifestations  of  that 
[ultimate]  Power,"  the  Absolute  is  declared  to  have 
"neither  relation  nor  its  elements — difference  and 
likeness."-  It  is  the  "Unconditioned."  Yet  this  un- 
conditioned or  "non-relative"  is  "an  actual  exist- 
ence." And  nothing  could  be  more  certain  than  this. 
For  by  the  very  conditions  of  thought  "an  indefinite 
[doubtless  he  means  :  imperfectly  defined]  conscious- 
ness of  Absolute  Being  is  necessitated."  '  Nor  is  this 
all.  For  "asserting  the  persistence  of  Force  is  but 
another  mode  of  asserting  an  Unconditional  Reality, 
without  beginning  or  end."^  So  that  ''the  phe- 
nomena of  evolution  have  to  be  deduced  from  the 
Persistence  of  Force, "^   while   the    "universally   co- 

'Op  CitTTp.  163.  -Op  Cit.,  p.  162.  'Op.  Cit.,p.  190.  ^Op. 
Cit.,  p,  189.  ''Op.  Cit.,  p.  398.  It  is  of  no  little  importance 
to  note  that  while,  as  Mr.  Spencer  says,  the  phenomena 
of  evolution  have  to  be  deduced irom  the  Persistence  of  Force, 
our  knowledge  of  the  latter  is  attained  necessarily  through 
induction  from  the  former. 


ETERNITY.  427 

existent  forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion  are  indeed 
the  complementary  aspects  of  that  absolutely  persis- 
tent Force  which  is  the  ultimate  datum  of  conscious- 
ness."^ 

Surely,  I  thought,  though  the  Absolute  may  be  in 
some  sense  the  Unknowable,  it  seems  far  enough 
from  being  absolutely  unknowable  in  the  pages  of 
Mr.  Spencer  or  elsewhere.  And  I  was  especially  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  this  ultimate  Unit  is  abso- 
lutely/^w^ze'?2  to  be  "without  beginning  or  end."  I 
'  could  not  but  regard  the  conception  of  the  Persistence 
of  Force  as  being  perfectly  valid  ;  and  yet  in  Mr. 
Spencer's  exposition  it  only  served  to  further  inten- 
sify in  my  mind  the  idea  of  eternity  as  boundless 
Past  and  boundless  Future,  while  the  Present  seemed 
only  a  phantom  rushing  from  infinity  to  infinity. 

VII. 

I  supplemented  my  study  of  Kant  by  a  prolonged 
effort  to  thread  the  mazes  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic — 
the  most  elaborate,  as  it  is  the  most  rigidly  consistent, 
of  all  the  attempts  that  have  been  made  to  arrange 
the  fundamental  categories  of  thought  in  the  order  of 
their  complexity  and  at  the  same  time  to  show  the 
necessity  of  their  sequence.  And  yet,  however  un- 
expectedly, it  was  in  the  work  of  a  poet  that  I   found 


'Op.  Cit.,  p    514. 


428  ETERNITY. 

the  immediate  clew  by  which  to  reconcile  the  contra- 
diction that  had  so  long  perplexed  and  distressed  me. 
Schiller  had  been  an  eager  and  appreciative  student 
of  Kant,  and  with  the  poet's  gift  he  had  seized  upon 
the  most  concrete  human  aspects  of  Kant's  philoso- 
phy Kant  had  declared  in  the  introduction  to  his 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  that  the  ultimate,  transcen- 
dently  significant  problems  for  human  intelligence 
are  God,  Freedom  and  Immortality.  Schiller  took 
up  these  conceptions  and  based  upon  them  his  theory 
of  the  Beautiful.  He  assumed  that  there  is  but  one 
ideal  or  type  of  personality.  Different  persons  are 
but  different  conscious  units,  struggling  in  various 
ways  towards  the  realization  of  that  type.  The  per- 
fect realization  of  that  type  is  the  perfect  Person,  "the 
absolute  subject"  or  God.^ 

Thus,  freedom  for  the  individual  is  to  be  attained 
only  through  the  realization  of  this  Divine  type  for 
and  in  the  individual's  own  life.  And  because  the 
type  is  infinite  its  realization  must  involve  infinite 
duration,  or  immortality.  That  is  the  way  leading 
man  to  God.  And  because  the  Divine  activity  is 
without  external  resistance  it  is  forever  unwearied. 
And  this  is  the  absolute  perfection  of  play — the  un- 
restricted and  therefore  unwearied  accomplishment  of 
results  that  must  thus  be  faultless,  and   hence   prove 


'See  Schiller's  ALsthetical  Letters^  xi.  to  xv.  inclusive. 


ETERNITY.  429 

the  ceaseless  occasion  of  divine  joy.  And  in  strug- 
gling towards  the  fulfillment  of  this  divine  type  in  his 
own  life  individual  man  participates  unceasingly  in 
the  Divine  life,  progressively  attains  freedom,  ap- 
proximates the  Divine,  and  realizes  immortality. 

VIII. 

All  this  Schiller  more  or  less  plainly  intimates. 
And  now  with  this  clew  the  doctrine  of  evolution  pre- 
sented to  my  mind  a  new  and  far  richer  significance 
than  it  had  previously  done.  A  distinction  that  I 
had  not  as  yet  been  able  to  formulate  clearly  now  be- 
came perfectly  plain.  The  distinction  was  this  :  The 
term  "unconditioned"  can  only  mean  that  the  ulti- 
mate Power  or  Cause  is  all-inclusive,  and  therefore 
unconditioned,  in  this  sense  only  :  that  there  is  noth- 
ing whatever  beyond  it  to  impose  conditions  upon  it  ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  and  for  that  very  reason, 
all  conditioned  existences  must  be  involved  i7i  Abso- 
lute Being  as  modes  ^it.  And  since  the  Ultimaj:e 
Power  as  Absolute  Being  can  not  change,  there  must 
unquestionably  be  an  "established  order"  in  its 
"manifestations.''  In  other  words,  the  ultimate,  all- 
inclusive  Power  is  perfect  in  its  activity  ;  its  activity 
is  in  accordance  with  an  absolutely  perfect,  unal- 
terable Method. 

But  by  this  established  order  or  method   the   ulti- 


430  ETERNITY.  ' 

mate  Power  gives  rise  to  conditioned  being — unfolds 
an  infinite  series  of  concretely  realized  conditions 
within  itself — and  thus  proves  to  be  indeed,  in  one 
respect,  the  Unconditioned  ;  but  also,  and  not  less 
truly,  it  proves  in  another  sense  to  be  the  absolutely 
j^^-condition.  And,  this  distinction  once  clearly 
seized,  others  followed  as  necessary  corollaries. 

IX. 

Thus,  since  in  its  modes  of  activity  it  manifests  it- 
self, and  since  we  may  become  increasingly  aware  of 
the  character  and  complexity  of  these  modes,  then  it 
seems  impossible  to  reject  the  conclusion  that  while 
the  ultimate  Power,  or  Force,  or  Energy,^  as  being 
absolute,  self-limited,  self-sufficing,  and  therefore 
perfect  or  infinite,  is  "unknowable"  in  the  sense  that 
no  created  mind  can  ever  acquire  an  exhaustive,  de- 
tailed knowledge  of  it,  yet  in  the  very  fact  that  it 
"manifests  itself  in  accordance  with  a  "fixed  order" 
or  changeless  method,  the  ultimate  Power  proves  to 
be  progressively  knowable  to  the  created  mind.  And 
the  extent  to  which  it  is  knowable  by  such  mind  can 
only  find  its  ultimate  limit  in  the  ultimate  limit  of 
mental  growth  on  the  part  of  a  created  thinking  unit. 


'Physicists  now  insist,  significantly  enough,  on  the  use  of 
the  term  "Energy"  where  the  term  "Force"  was  formerly 
used,  as  if  feeling  that  the  ultimate  Power  must  be  spon- 
taneous and  personal 


ETERNITY.  431 

Nor  is  this  all.  For  Absolute  Being,  or  the  all- 
comprising  Energy,  can  not  but  be  wholly  and  cease- 
lessly active.  Ceasing  to  act  is  ceasing  to  exist ;  and 
ceasing  to  act  in  any  degree  is  ceasing  to  exist  in  just 
that  degree.  But  that  something  should  become 
nothing  is  "unthinkable."  The  idea  of  the  absolute 
persistence  of  Energy  is,  let  us  repeat,  precisely  the 
same  as  that  of  "an  unconditioned  reality  without  be- 
ginning or  end."  In  fact,  the  persistence  of  energy 
is  an  "ultimate  truth  given  in  our  mental  constitu- 
tion;"^ whence  I  could  not  but  conclude  that  caus- 
ation, or  creation — that  is,  the  self-uafolding  of  Ab- 
solute Being — is  an  eternally  selt-equal  fact ;  and  I 
recalled,  with  a  new  comprehension  of  their  signifi- 
cance, the  phrases  I  had  so  often  heard  repeated  in 
childhood  and  youth,  declaring  the  Divinity  to  be 
"without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning,"  as 
being  ''yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever  the  same,"  as 
being  the  "high  and  lofty  One  who  inhabiteth  Eter- 
nity." 

Still  further,  I  could  not  but  think  that  Absolute 
Being,  'manifesting  itself"  in  accordance  with  a 
"fixed  order"  or  method,  must,  in  that  very  fact,  be 
perfectly  aware  of  itself  in  both  its  method  and  its 
manifestations.  By  no  mental  effort  could  I  suppress 
the  conviction  that  assumed  shape  in  my  mind,  to  the 


^Spencer's  First  Principles,  p.  191. 


432  ETERNITY. 

effect  that  the  ultimate  Energy,  so  unfailingly  perfect 
in  the  method  of  its  activity  and  self-manifestation, 
must,  in  its  perfect  self-guidance,  be  a  perfect  Intelli- 
gence. 

X. 

And  here  the  objection  of  "anthropomorphism" 
seemed  to  find  its  answer.  Men  have  conceived  the 
Divine  to  be  embodied  in  trees  and  rivers  and  clouds 
and  serpents  and  fire  and  planets  and  sun  and  stars, 
as  well  as  in  human  form.  Was  there  no  germ  of 
truth  in  all  that  ?  I  reflected  that  a  thought  is  not 
complete  until  it  receives  expression,  outer  manifes- 
tation, explicit  form  orembodiment.  It  also  occurred 
to  me  that  the  more  complex  the  thought  is,  by  so 
much  the  more  must  the  expression  or  embodiment 
of  it  be  complex.  And,  when  I  considered  that  the 
total  thought  of  the  Absolute  Being  must  be  infinitely 
complex,  I  saw  that  only  the  infinite  totality  of  forms 
and  relations  could  give  adequate  embodiment  or  ex- 
pression to  that  thought.  So  that  men  have  not  been 
wholl}^  wrong  in  supposing  there  is  something  divine 
in  the  various  forms  of  the  world  about  them.  Their 
error  has  consisted  rather  in  assuming  that  some  one 
form  sufficed  as  an  embodiment  of  the  Divine.  Nay, 
even  here,  they  blindly  sought  after  the  fuller  truth 
by  assuming  that  each  form  was  an  embodied  god. 
They  felt  that  something    divine   was   expressed    in 


ETERNITY.  433 

every  form,  and  they  could  not  interpret  this  impres- 
sion in  any  higher  sense  than  that  there  were  as  many 
gods  as  forms.  Nay,  I  can  not  but  think  that  the 
ancient  Egyptians  felt  this  great  truth  and  groped 
about  for  its  expression  in  their  strange  commingling 
of  forms  as  representative  of  Divinity. 

But  the  identifying  of  the  divine  with  the  human 
form  was  an  immense  advance  over  all  previous 
stages  ;  for  the  recognition  of  the  quality  of  intelli- 
gence as  a  divine  quality  was  thus  insured.  What 
remained  to  be  accomplished  was  that  man  should  so 
far  clarify  his  own  intelligence  as  to  recognize  the 
fact  of  the  infinite  complexity  of  the  divine  Thought, 
and  thus  to  learn  that  not  any  single  form  or  group  of 
forms  can  embody  more  than  a  single  phase  of  that 
Thought  ;  that,  in  fact,  nothing  less  than  the  abso- 
lute total  of  Existence  in  all  its  infinitely  varied  forms 
could  be  adequate  as  a  means  to  the  perfect  utterance 
of  the  perfect  Intelligence. 

XI. 

Thus,  while  in  one  respect  Absolute  Being  would 
seem  to  be  changelessly  perfect  as  the  ultimate  Cause 
forever  manifested  in  all  particular  forms  of  existence, 
such  forms  being  themselves  the  "effect"  or  modes  of 
Absolute  Being,  in  another  respect  it  would  seem  to 
be  also  absolutely  conscious  of  itself  in  all  its  modes. 


434  ETERNITY. 

So  that  oue  can  not  avoid  the  conclusion,  on  the 
one  hand,  that  there  is  no  reality  which  is  not  a  mani- 
festation of  Absolute  Being  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  there  is  no  minutest  phase  of  reality  which  Ab- 
solute Being  as  Intelligence  does  not  perfectly  think 
or  know.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  "what  is  rational  is 
actual,  and  what  is  actual  is  rational.'" 

And  now  because  the  same  Absolute  Being  mani- 
fests itself  and  knows  itself  perfectly  in  its  own  mani- 
festation, it  seems  impossible  to  avoid  this  further 
conclusion  :  that  what  the  primal  Energy,  or  First 
Cause,  is  absolutely ,  just  that  is  what  Man  proves  to  be 
relatively;  that  is,  a  Being  who  is  knowing-subject 
and  known-object  in  perfect  fusion.  Thus,  if  man 
once  thought  of  the  divinities  as  having  a  human  na- 
ture, his  final  discovery  is  that  man  himself  is,  in 
reality,  possessed  of  the  divine  nature.  And  this  is 
but  the  thought  of  primitive  man  unfolded  into  ma- 
turity. 

It  is  thus  that  I  was  brought  to  what  seemed  to  me 
the  real  solution  of  the  problem  of  eternity  in  its  con- 
crete significance.  Reference  has  already  been  made 
to  the  fact  that  space  in  its  character  of  relation  be- 
tween bodies,  and  time  in  its  character  of  relation  be- 
tween events,  seem  to  be  modes  of  existence  both 
infinite  and  finite  ;  and,  from  the  point  of  view    now 


'Hegel  Philosophie  des  Rechts,  Dritte  Auflage,  S.  17. 


KTERNITY.  435 

reached,  they  may  be  said  to  be  the  negative  modes 
in  which  absolute  Being  unfolds  itself  in  finite  and 
thereforechanging  forms.  Apart  from  these  finite 
forms  there  would  then  be  no  relation  of  coexistence, 
and  apart  from  the  changes  occurring  in  those  forms 
there  would  be  no  relation  of  succession  ;  that  is, 
there  would  be  neither  space  nor  time  in  any  other 
sense  than  that  in  which  mere  blank  "nothing"  can 
be  said  to  have  an  existence. 

Absolute  Being,  then,  is  not  in  space  and  time  in 
the  sense  of  being  subject  to  them  ;  for  they  are  but 
m.odes  of  the  existence  of  Absolute  Being.  And,  if 
Absolute  Being  can  not  be  conceived  apart  from  its 
modes,  so  neither  can  these  modes  be  conceived  apart 
from  Absolute  Being.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that 
the  highest — that  is,  more  adequate — modes  of  In- 
telligence are  wholly  independent  of  space  and  time. 

And,  further,  since  Absolute  Being  is  unchangingly 
perfect,  it  is  evident  that  it  could  never  have  been 
either  more  or  less  in  its  total  Reality  than  it  now  is, 
and  that  it  can  never  become  other  than  it  is  ;  for 
that  is  a  necessary  corollary  from  the  persistence  of 
Energy.  And,  as  time  is  a  condition  of  the  changing, 
then  Absolute  Being  as  unchanging  can  not  be  con- 
ditioned by  time.  On  the  contrary,  since  all  finite, 
changing  things  are  but  modes  of  Absolute  Being,  it 
is  evident  that  time,  as  nothing  more  than  a  condition 
of  the  changing,  is  but  a  subordinate  and  vanishing 


436  ETERNITY. 

phase  of  the  total  creative  Process.  For  example, 
much  of  what  is  still  future  to  the  child  is  already 
past  to  the  youth  ;  and  the  to-morrow  of  youth  is  the 
yesterday  of  old  age.  Past,  present  and  future  are  all 
merged  into  to-day  by  the  coexistence  of  generations. 
So  the  northern  and  southern  hemispheres  of  our 
planet  are  measurably  complementary  to  one  another 
in  seasons  as  well  as  in  geometric  form.  Summer 
and  winter,  autumn  and  spring,  are  perpetual,  when 
we  consider  the  earth  as  a  whole.  And  so  in  total 
space  there  appear  to  be  innumerable  nebulae  realizing 
serially  all  stages  of  advancement  toward  solar  sys- 
tems, and  innumerable  solar  systems  realizing  serially 
all  possible  stages  of  progress  from  the  nebulous  state 
to  the  state  of  collapse  into  nebulae  again.  So  that 
every  possible  stage  of  evolution,  from  the  most  dif- 
fuse and  simple  to  the  most  tense  and  complex,  in- 
cluding organisms  of  every  grade — nay,  including 
every  grade  of  human  development — we  may  legiti- 
mately conclude  to  be  prese?it  perpetually  in  the  total 
range  of  the  divine  creative  process. 

And  so  I  came  to  recognize  that  all  conceivable 
duration  must  be  merged  in  the  changeless  now  of 
Absolute    Being.     That    is    the   concrete  Eter7iity.\ 


*Cf.  Spinoza,  Et/iices,  Pars  I.  Def.  VIII.  Per  aeternitatem 
intelligo  ipsam  existentiam,  quatenus  ex  sola  rei  aeternae 
definitione  necessario  sequi  concipitur. 

ExpiviCATio. —  Talis  enim  e.ristefitia,  ut  aetcrna  Veritas, 
sictit  rei  essentia  coticipitiiry  proptereaque  per  durationeni  ant 
tenipus  explicari  non  potest,  tametsi  duratio  principio  et  fine 
carerc  concipiatur. 


ETERNITY.  437 

And  the  recognition  of  this  truth  brought  with  it  a 
sense  of  great  peace  and  rest,  for  now  I  have  no 
longer  to  think  of  the  past  or  of  the  future  of  the 
Universe.  I  have  only  to  think  of  the  absolute,  ac- 
tual Totality  of  Existence — the  infinitely  rich  present, 
in  which  past  and  future  are  absolutely  merged.  It 
is  this  Totality  which  endures,  and  apart  from  which 
eternity,  which  is  but  the  mere  form  of  the  enduring, 
could  have  no  meaning.  God  is  fulfilled  eternity, 
needing  not  to  look  bej^ond  himself,  but  resting  ever 
in  the  contemplation  of  his  own  infinite  fullness  and 
perfection.  The  divine  Energy,  self-active,  self- 
sufiicing,  self-ordering,  self-unfolding,  rests  ever  in 
the  unmixed  joy  of  its  eternal  self-conservation. 

XII. 

And  now,  when  I  recur  again  to  the  ideas  of  space 
and  time,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  proper  terms  are  : 
Space  and  Duration.  These,  as  already  remarked, 
are  nothing  else  than  modes  of  existence.  On  the 
one  hand,  as  infinitely  extended,  they  are  modes  of 
infinite  existence.  On  the  other  hand,  as  infinitely 
divisible,  they  are  modes  of  finite  existence.  And 
finite  existence  itself  is  but  the  multiform  mode  of  in- 
finite existence.  Infinite  existence  is  the  continuous, 
or  universal.  Finite  existence  is  the  discrete,  or  par- 
ticular. Continuous  and  discrete,  universal  and  par- 
ticular, are  but  complementary  phases    of   the   same 


438  ETERNITY. 

absolute  Totality.      Infinite  existence  is  the  power  of 
which  finite  existences  are  the  modes. 

I  observe,  too,  that,  since  this  absolute,  self- 
knowing  Power  is  forever  completely  unfolded  in  its 
modes,  and  since  these  modes  are  thus  the  self-mani- 
festation of  the  Power,  then,  since  the  modes  are 
knowable,  the  Power  itself  must  also  be  thus  far 
knowable.  And  this  conviction  became  only  the 
clearer  the  more  I  dwelt  upon  the  relation  between 
the  Power  and  its  modes.  I^ooking  out  at  the  stars 
on  a  specially  clear  night,  I  noted  the  differences  in 
their  brilliancy,  and  along  with  this  the  varying  ap- 
pearance of  vacancy  or  of  fullness  in  different  parts  of 
the  heavens.  At  the  same  time,  I  recalled  the  fact 
that  the  apparent  nearness  or  remoteness  of  any  two 
stars  to  each  other  is  no  proof  of  their  real  proximity, 
but  only  of  the  fact  that  a  line  drawn  through  them 
and  the  earth  approximates  a  straight  line  ;  and  it  oc- 
curred to  me  that,  though  vast  spaces  seem  blank 
even  to  the  eye  aided  by  the  finest  telescope,  yet,  if  I 
were  possessed  of  unlimited  power  to  receive  impres- 
sions of  light,  then  I  should  see  vast  numbers  of  stars 
now  wholly  invisible  from  the  earth.  Nay,  I  should 
doubtless  see  them  in  such  numbers  as  to  fill  the 
whole  field  of  vision  with  light  of  varying  degrees  of 
intensity ;  and  not  only  so,  but  with  such  delicacy  of 
visual  power  I  could  so  far  distinguish  between  de- 
grees of  light  as  to  judge  of  the  relative    nearness   or 


ETERNITY.  439 

remoteness  of  the  stars,  and  so  behold  what  would  ap- 
pear to  be  a  solid,  shining  dome  broken  into  infinitely 
complex  arches,  with  the  farthest  stars  for  keystones 
and  the  nearest  stars  for  pendants.  And  this  mag- 
nificent vision  would  be  perpetually  varying,  not 
merely  because  of  the  swift  movement  of  the  sphere 
from  which  my  observations  must  necessarily  be 
taken,  but  also  because  of  the  perpetual  movement  of 
every  single  element  in  the  fluid-solid  dome. 

But  thus  also  there  would  be  presented  an  absolute 
limit  to  the  field  of  my  direct  perception  ;  and  yet,  as- 
suredly, I  could  not  then,  any  more  than  now,  resist 
the  conviction  that  beyond  this  limit  space  still  ex- 
tends infinitely,  and  that  Absolute  being  is  just  as  ac- 
tual in  every  part  of  that  space  as  in    the   part  thus 
roofed  in  by  stars  to  me.     And  now  I  reflect  that, 
though  my  direct  perception  would  thus  be  limited, 
yet  to  that  higher  mode  of  vision,  consisting  of   Rea- 
son, the  innumerable  spheres  that  give  significance  to 
infinite  space  are  in  truth  nothing  else  than  prismatic 
lenses,  through  which  the   radiance    of   the    Divine 
Thought  is  focused,  and  yet    also    dispersed    into    its 
myriad  forms  of  beauty.     Thus  they  prove  to  be  the 
means,  not  of  limiting,  but  rather  of  extending  vision 
in  its  most  adequate  modes.     So  that,  while  in    one 
respect  the  ultimate  Power  is  "unknowable,"  yet  in 
a  higher  sense  what  prove  to  be  impassable  limits    to 
the  less  adequate  modes  of  knowledge  prove    also   to 


440  ETERNITY. 

be  veritable  means  to  the  further  extension  of  knowl- 
edge in  its  more  adequate  modes  ;  whence  the  ulti- 
mate Power  is  seen  to  be  absolutely  knowable.  For 
to  think  truly  is  but  to  trace  the  "fixed  order"  or 
method  of  the  ultimate  Power  as  that  Power  mani- 
fests itself  in  the  universe.  In  a  word,  to  think  truly 
is  to  trace  out  progressively  the  eternal  thought  of 
God. 

XIII. 

And  thus  once  more  do  I  find  that  in  the  very  fact  of 
my  being  as  a  thinking  unit  I  am  possessed  of  a  divine 
nature.  My  chief,  my  sole,  mission  is  to  think  the 
divine  thought  with  ever-increasing  adequacy  and 
clearness,  and  to  conform  my  life  thereto.  That  is 
living  the  divine  life.  That  is  the  progressive  realiz- 
ation of  immortality.  That  is  to  bring  freedom  into 
increasingly  rich  reality  in  my  own  existence.  And 
it  is  the  realization  of  immortality,  because  as  a  think- 
ing unit  I  belong  to  the  same  type  of  being  as  the  ul- 
timate, self-knowing  Power  ;  and  since  I  can  conceive 
of  no  absolute  limit  to  the  possible  development  of 
that  type  within  my  own  individual  life,  but  rather 
can  only  regard  myself  as  being  possessed  of  an  in- 
finite nature,  which  as  mine  it  is  my  own  natural  des- 
tiny to  fulfil,  then*  clearly  I  can  not  cease  to  exist  as 
an  individual.     For  the  perfect  fulfillment  of  this  in- 


ETERNITY.  441 

finite  typical  nature  on  my  part  can  be   accomplished 
in  no  less  than  infinite  duration. 

But  I  also  note  that  while  my  progressive  develop- 
ment involves  time  as  a  mode  of  my  existence,  yet 
the  more  adequately  I  realize  the  divine  nature  in  my 
own  individuality,  by  so  much  the  more  truly  do  I 
become  superior  to  the  limitations  of  time,  and  thus 
experience  some  semblance  of  the  divine  repose  and 
peace  of  Eternity. 

The  way  leading  man  to  God  then  is  not  a  mere 
path  amid  the  stars  through  boundless  space.  It  is 
rather  the  "way  of  the  Spirit,"  the  method  by  which 
the  divine  ideal  or  Type  is  to  become  progressively 
unfolded  into  reality  in  the  individual  soul.  It  is  the 
way  of  escape  from  the  vacuity  of  mere  initial  exist- 
ence, the  way  out  of  the  primitive  Eden,  with  its 
walls  and  its  gates  and  its  insoluble  contradictions, 
the  way  out  of  the  uncertainties,  the  anxieties,  the 
weariness  and  the  terrors  of  Time  into  the  clear  as- 
surance, the  self-poised  maturity,  the  invigorating 
self- activity,  the  divine  repose  and  joy  of  Eternity. 
The  way  by  which  man  approaches  the  Divine  is  the 
way  by  which  man  becomes  divine. 

And  so  I  came  at  length  to  see  that  the  one  possible 
way  for  me  to  escape  from  the  contradictions  of  end- 
less time — the  infinitely  stretched  out  eternity — con- 
sists in  the  gradual  expansion  of  my  life  so   as  more 


442  «  ETERNITY. 

and  more  to  fulfill  the  form  of  the  infinitely  present, 
concrete  Eternity,  whose  essence  is  the  Divine  Life — 
God  in  me  and  I  in  God. 


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